Director of the Abuja School of Social and Political Thought, Dr. Sam Amadi, has warned that the Senate’s attempt to weaken provisions on electronic transmission of election results could plunge Nigeria into a constitutional and democratic crisis.
Speaking in an interview with ARISE News on Sunday, Amadi described the ongoing controversy around the Electoral Act amendment as a dangerous repeat of the mistakes that undermined public confidence in the 2023 general elections.
“This is a déjà vu,” Amadi said. “In 2022, when the provision for electronic transmission was debated, all APC senators voted against it. What we have now is a return to that same confusion.”
He recalled that the compromise reached in the 2022 Electoral Act allowed INEC to determine the mode of transmission through its guidelines, a standard legislative practice meant to accommodate technological changes.
“The law deliberately deferred to INEC because electoral technology evolves too fast. INEC exercised that power through its regulations and guidelines,” he said. “If things were working properly, we should be strengthening that provision, not reversing it.”
Amadi argued that the crisis that followed the 2023 elections stemmed not from the law itself, but from judicial misinterpretation and INEC’s failure to firmly defend its own regulations in court.
“The courts, including the Supreme Court, got this wrong,” he said. “INEC almost criminally failed to defend the regulations it publicly committed to, even at Chatham House in London.”
He added that the controversy surrounding result transmission has left a lasting legitimacy deficit.
“Up till today, many Nigerians believe the 2023 election was illegitimate. That crisis was created by ambiguity, and now the Senate wants to deepen it.”
Amadi dismissed claims that Nigeria lacks the technical capacity for real-time transmission, noting that INEC had successfully deployed electronic transmission in governorship elections before 2023.
“There is no confusion. There is no technical obstacle,” he said. “INEC transmitted governorship election results electronically before 2023 without problems.”
According to him, the failure to transmit presidential results was a result of poor preparation, not infrastructure gaps.
“What happened in 2023 was that INEC failed to prepare for the presidential upload. There are no nine states where transmission was impossible. That claim is simply false.”
He warned that reverting to discretionary transmission would reopen the door to electoral fraud.
“If you weaken electronic transmission, you return us to fake results declared at gunpoint, altered figures at collation centres, and midnight declarations,” Amadi said. “Then you go to court, and judges say it’s only a guideline. That’s how democracies collapse.”
On the Senate President’s stance that he would not be intimidated, Amadi was blunt.
“What is intimidation?” he asked. “That Nigerians demand transparency after years of electoral failure? That is not intimidation — that is democracy.”
He urged senators who oppose the amendment to assert their authority.
“There is no Senate where only the Senate President decides outcomes,” he said. “If a majority passed real-time transmission and it was altered, they must challenge it forcefully.”
Amadi further warned that eroding electoral credibility increases the risk of coups, citing recent developments across West Africa.
“When people lose confidence in elections, coups become attractive,” he said. “History shows that coups often follow deliberate efforts by ruling elites to undermine free and fair elections.”
Turning to allegations of alterations in the tax reform bills, Amadi described them as criminal and unconstitutional.
“Somebody falsified a law duly passed by the National Assembly,” he said. “That is a crime and a constitutional violation.”
He accused state institutions of complicity through silence.
“If the EFCC and DSS were functioning, this would already be under investigation,” Amadi said. “This is institutional cover-up, institutional fraud, and an attack on constitutional order.”
Amadi said altering a gazetted law without legislative approval amounted to “a soft coup against democracy.”
“The presidency has no right to alter laws,” he said. “If you disagree, you veto. What is happening here is dangerous.”
Despite the Senate’s plan to hold an emergency plenary, Amadi expressed scepticism.
“My expectation is that they should correct the error,” he said. “But desperation has set in. Many politicians cannot win free and fair elections, and they will resist any reform that makes elections credible.”
He concluded with a grim warning.
“We are approaching a constitutional crisis,” Amadi said. “When democracy loses legitimacy, the entire republic is at risk.”
Boluwatife Enome
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