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Nigerian lawmakers plan to make the electronic transmission of results mandatory starting from the 2027 national elections, according to a statement released at the end of a retreat for senate leadership in Akwa Ibom state.
Lawmakers are proposing changes to the country’s electoral law to improve transparency after questions were raised about this year’s elections.
This will include “the uploading of polling unit-level results and result sheets used at different levels of result collation,” the lawmakers said.
The proposal comes after Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission failed to electronically transmit results in real time during elections in February, after it had pledged to do so.
Some opposition parties alleged that the failure allowed results to be manipulated in favor of the ruling party’s presidential candidate, Bola Tinubu, who was eventually declared the winner.
Nigeria’s Supreme Court will start hearing an appeal by opposition candidates on Monday after an election petition tribunal dismissed their complaints in September.
Among other suggestions, it was proposed that the the commission should be “unbundled to improve its efficiency and effectiveness in the preparation and conduct of elections.” An amendment that will allow Nigerians outside of the country to vote was also proposed.
Tinubu won February’s election with 8.8 million votes, according to official results, 1.8 million more than Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party and 2.7 million more than Peter Obi of the Labour Party.
Delays in electronically uploading the results contributed “to diminishing public trust and confidence in results processing,” a European Union team said in a Feb. 27 report on the Nigerian polls.