By Caleb Ishaya, Abuja
The Young Progressives, YPP, has rejected the recently passed Electoral Act amendment by the Senate, arguing that it failed to make electronic transmission of election results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC’s Result Viewing Portal, IREV, mandatory.
The party therefore called on Nigerians, including civil society organisations, youth groups, labour unions, professional bodies and all advocates of democracy, to embark on peaceful mass action to demand accountability.
In a statement issued yesterday and signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Comrade Egbeola Wale Martins, the party said the Senate deliberately excluded the most critical reform required to guarantee credible elections, stressing that the legislature had “succeeded only in fooling itself, not Nigerians.”
The statement further said that no one expected anything progressive from the Senate, which it described as part of “a rubber-stamp National Assembly that consistently does the bidding of the executive without regard for the grave consequences of its actions on the citizens it was elected to represent.”
The party decried the failure to address what it described as the most pivotal of the proposed – mandatory electronic transmission of results.
According to the party, the omission was deliberate and self-serving, “designed to preserve a dysfunctional electoral process that benefits only a political class that has captured the Nigerian state.”
It regretted that a reform that would have resolved the technical glitches witnessed during the 2023 general elections and made electoral manipulation far more difficult had been intentionally discarded, “paving the way for the same beneficiaries of a flawed process to remain in power beyond 2027.”
The YPP maintained that any Electoral Act that does not guarantee mandatory transmission of results from polling units to IREV amounts to an invitation to electoral fraud and a repetition of past mistakes, insisting that it was unacceptable and must be resisted.
“Only sustained civic pressure can compel lawmakers who now represent themselves rather than the people to reverse this anti-democratic decision,” it stated.
The party also called on President Bola Ahmed Tinubu to rise above personal and partisan considerations and act in the national interest by withholding assent to the bill.
“We urge Mr. President not to sign any Electoral Act that fails to enshrine mandatory electronic transmission of election results as this remains the clearest path to restoring public confidence in Nigeria’s electoral process and reflecting the genuine will of the people.
“Nigeria’s democracy must not be sacrificed on the altar of elite convenience. The people must prevail,” it stressed.
