Nigeria’s Electoral Reform: Legal Expert Raises Alarm Over Senate Bill’s “Room for Error”
A leading member of Nigeria’s legal community has warned that key provisions in the Senate’s version of the Electoral Reform Amendment Bill could undermine the integrity of future elections. Monday Ubani, SAN, Chairman of the Nigeria Bar Association’s Electoral Reform Committee, said the proposal leaves critical vulnerabilities that could be exploited.
Ubani, a Senior Advocate of Nigeria, made his comments during an interview on Arise Television on Saturday. His critique focuses on the bill’s approach to the transmission and collation of results.
He stressed that both electronic transmission and physical transfer of results still rely on manual processes at designated collation centers, a longstanding point of weakness. “Nothing has changed,” Ubani stated, referring to the core collation procedure.
A specific point of contention is the role of the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV). Ubani clarified that IREV is strictly a public viewing tool. “It does not calculate or tabulate results,” he said. The lawyer argued that the Senate’s draft introduces risks related to potential communication failures during result transmission, which could be illegally manipulated.
The legislative process now moves to a harmonization committee. Both the Senate and the House of Representatives have passed their own versions of the amendment bill, but they contain differences. A committee is scheduled to meet on Monday to reconcile these versions before forwarding a single bill to the President for assent.
Ubani noted that the existing 2022 Electoral Act already empowers the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to issue guidelines on the mode of result transfer. His primary concern, however, is the persistent gap between polling unit returns and final collated results.
“The problem with our electoral system has always been between the polling unit and the collation centre,” Ubani said. “The people have witnessed a situation where a different result will be declared at the collation centre, different from what happened at the polling unit.”
This disconnect has historically fueled disputes and eroded public trust in electoral outcomes. Ubani’s analysis suggests the Senate’s proposal does not sufficiently address this fundamental flaw, potentially perpetuating avenues for electoral error.
The harmonization committee’s work next week is therefore pivotal. Its recommendations will shape the final legal framework for Nigeria’s next general elections, with significant implications for transparency, accuracy, and public confidence in the democratic process.
