Abaribe, 12 other senators insist Senate passed clause on e-transmission of results

By Kingsley Okoye

Thirteen senators, led by Sen Enyinnaya Abaribe have said contrary to claims in the public domain, the Senate passed clause 60(3) of Electoral Act (amendment) Bill on real-time electronic transmission of election results by the senate at plenary on Wednesday.

They spoke in Abuja on Thursday following controversies and anger generated among sections of Nigeria over reports that the Senate dropped the clause on the electronic transmission of election results on Wednesday

The Senate had allegedly rejected a proposed amendment to Clause 60, subsection 3 of the Electoral Amendment Bill 2026 seeking to make the electronic transmission of election results from polling units compulsory.

The upper chamber adopted the existing provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 which states that “the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the commission.

But Abaribe said media reports that the senate had rejected passage of the clause on real-time electronic transmission of results are not true.

“What we passed, and which the Senate President himself, when he was making clarification, confirmed that what we passed was transmission of electronic results.

“And I need to make this very clear, every one of us who is a senator (and) who has the privilege to represent a senatorial district came here under the trust of their senatorial zones and each one of them holds a public trust.

“This trust has been handed to us by Nigerians to do the absolute best for Nigeria. And when it now appears that we have been misunderstood, that’s why we said we should come here,” he said.

The senator explained that there was a joint committee of members of the electoral committees in both chambers which worked on the electoral act amendment bill proposal.

“The joint committees had several retreats; everyone agreed at the end of the retreat that electronic transmission of results was the way to go.

“And that was reflected in the reports, both in the House and in Senate reports, and I think the senate president reiterated it yesterday.

“It was the report of that senate ad hoc committee that we considered when we went into a closed session so that we can tidy up the report.

“And when we now came back to plenary to pass it, we passed it without any rancour.

“I can assure you, on the honour of all of us who are standing here, that both the electoral committee of the senate and ad hoc committee of the senate, and also in the executive session that we had, we all agreed on section 63(3), which is electronic transmission of votes.

“And electronic transmission of results was what we passed at plenary yesterday (Wednesday),” he said.

Abaribe also reiterated that a committee had been set up to harmonise the passed version of the senate and that of the house of representatives.

“Harmonisation is what you use to make sure that you produce one single document which the president will now sign. So that is where we are at the moment,” he said.

The senator said that after the adjournment of plenary session on Wednesday, the senate did not reconvene to approve the votes and proceedings of the plenary.

“One other thing, so that Nigerians can rest assured, is that after our plenary session yesterday (Wednesday), we adjourned but did not come back to pass the votes and proceedings,” he said.

This, he said, was because the document that would be taken to the harmonisation committee would be the one passed by the senate and ratified by the votes and proceedings, adding: “There’s still one more step left by the senate to take.

“What now happens in harmonisation is simple, you either adopt the house’s version or you adopt the senate’s version, and of course Nigerians know what they want.”

According to him, it is the duty of Nigerians also to put pressure and ask questions from their representatives on what was passed.

Abaribe emphasised that majority of the senators across party lines were in support of the passage of real-time electronic transmission of results, “because this is not a party matter; this is a Nigerian matter”.

Meanwhile, Ezenwa Nwagwu, the Executive Director, Peering Advocacy and Advancement Centre in Africa (PAACA) has said the assumption that when results are not electronically transmitted, public trust is lost cannot not be substantiated.

“Another spurious assumption is that there’s an atmosphere of distrust among the masses. This cannot be substantiated by any verifiable data or statistics.

“The masses are not a politically-homogeneous category. So nothing can be farther than the truth. Election, ordinarily, is a divisive activity that produces winners and losers.

“That said. I’m more inclined to e-collation rather than continued upload of results,” Nwagwu said.