Senator Onyekachi Nwaebonyi, who represents Ebonyi North Senatorial District, said the National Assembly’s latest amendment to the Electoral Act has closed loopholes that previously allowed electoral manipulation.
Speaking on ARISE Television on Wednesday, Nwaebonyi said the revised law makes the electronic transmission of election results mandatory. He added that the amended legislation now supersedes existing guidelines issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“Nobody can rig election in Nigeria” under the new arrangement, he said. According to him, the key distinction between the 2022 Electoral Act and the latest amendment lies in how electronic transmission of results is now provided for in the law itself.
“The difference between the Electoral Act of 2022 and what we are doing now, and which will make the decision of the court different from what happened in INEC versus Atiku, which is a very popular case, as far as this electronic transmission of votes is concerned, is that this time, the National Assembly have inserted it in our law,” the lawmaker said.
He explained that the language of the amendment makes the provision compulsory. “And the word there is ‘shall’, not ‘may’. That is the difference,” he added. Nwaebonyi also said the amended Electoral Act would take precedence over any conflicting operational guidelines issued by INEC, including those concerning the use of the Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
“And moreover, the Electoral Act overrides the INEC guideline. If there is conflict between the guideline and the Act, the Act is an Act of the parliament. The guideline is a guideline of the agency. So the Electoral Act supersedes the guideline,” the senator declared.
“So with what we have done now, nobody can rig election in Nigeria,” he said. He, however, noted that the success of the reform would depend on the vigilance of political actors and stakeholders. “All that is required is for all eyes to be on the ball by all political players,” the senator added.
The Senate on Tuesday reconvened in an emergency session amid public outcry over earlier amendments to the Electoral Act, particularly provisions concerning the transmission of election results and the status of INEC’s IReV porta The Ebonyi lawmaker maintained that the amendment would fundamentally change the legal context in which future election disputes are determined, particularly in relation to electronic transmission of results.