Three opposition political parties have urged the Conference Committee of the National Assembly to adopt the position of the House of Representatives on mandatory real-time electronic transmission of election results.
The parties are the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, African Democratic Congress, ADC, and the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP.
The parties stated this in a statement in Abuja, yesterday, jointly signed by their various National Publicity Secretaries, Ini Ememobong (PDP), Mallam Bolaji Abdulahi (ADC), and Ladipo Johnson (NNPP).
They expressed concerns on the rejection of the proposal to make mandatory, real-time electronic transmission of results in polling units.
The opposition described the action of the Senate as “retrogressive, anti-people and anti-democratic, capable of derailing Nigeria’s hard-earned democracy.
“We are at a loss as to why a party that is currently deploying technology to run e-registration of its members across the country is averse to using it to transmit results,” they said.
The opposition said one would have expected the senators to rise above party sentiments and act in the best interest of democracy.
“But as usual, they have failed the people they were supposed to represent,” the opposition said.
They recalled several cases on the 2023 general election where the court, especially the Supreme Court, held that electronic transmission of election results was not backed by law.
“This immediately signalled a lacuna that needed to be urgently fixed to ensure that future elections do not suffer the same fate.
“However, beyond providing a basis for judicial action in future, the electronic transmission will increase transparency, trust and belief in the electoral process, which in turn will deepen and consolidate democracy in our country.
“With this rejection, the Senate has returned Nigeria to square-one,” the parties said.
They said the ball is now in the court of the conference committee to align with the people by adopting the position of the House of Representatives.
“They should not act as politicians, whose eyes and thoughts are only on the next elections, but as statesmen who should have the next generation in mind.
“We are trusting that they will act in the best interest of the people, to forestall the negative consequences that may result in foisting anti-democratic laws on the people,” they added. NAN
