Senate May Vote Publicly On Real- Time Transmission Of Election Results — Ningi

Former Deputy Majority Leader in the Senate, Bauchi Central, Abdul Ningi, said on Monday that the Senate could adopt votes and proceedings on the electronic transmission of election results publicly amid ongoing controversy over the issue.

Ningi spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme ahead of today's emergency plenary session, following ongoing debates over the e-transmission of election results after the Electoral Act amendment bill passed the third reading at the Senate.

On whether it was possible for the voting process at the Senate to be made public to enable Nigerians know which senator voted for or against the real-time transmission of election results, Ningi said, “I think it’s possible. It depends on the presiding officer because the law provides that.

“You can stand up and say, ‘I, Ningi, I accept e-transmission in real time.’ I sit down. It’s recorded every other senator, and that is the only way we need to move forward.

“One thing that is very important is that the votes and proceedings have not been captured. So tomorrow, we need to look at what the votes and proceedings captured are. Is it a transfer?

“There was a motion for amendment by Manguno, and then the question was put. Who asked the question? Why was the question raised?

“Was it discussed? It is important that when you bring a motion on something that you have no idea of, one of the reasons why maybe people are not so happy is that the Senate President should have asked us as a committee, ‘Please, educate us on this issue that this Moguna has raised,” 

Not ‘Party Affair’

Ningi however, stated that the issue was not about one political party or the other.

“I’m here, and I’m telling you with all sense of responsibility that this is not a party thing. It has never been seen as a party thing up to the moment we went into the committee of the whole.

“If tomorrow the Senate President decides to say, ‘Is it transfer or transmission, and the gavel was sealed on transfer. They (the majority) have their way,” he said.

He, however, expressed disgust over what he described as the blanket condemnation of the Senate “in its entirety” over the matter.

“I feel so sad and outraged myself when I see the condemnation across this country condemning the Senate in its entirety. And that’s why for us, we need to tell the story.

“And I can tell you 98 per cent of the senators are in agreement with the submission made by the House. I don’t know how they are trying to make it a party affair. I don’t think so.

“As I told you, APC governors have presented their submission, PDP…, and they are all saying e-transmission,” Ningi stated on the programme.

Protest

The Senate has come under severe fire since February 4, 2026, when it passed the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Reenactment) Amendment Bill 2026 through the third reading, disapproving the proposed amendment to Clause 60, Subsection 3, of the bill, which sought to make the electronic transmission of election results mandatory.

The rejected provision would have required presiding officers of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to electronically transmit results from each polling unit to the IREV portal in real time, after the prescribed Form EC&A had been signed and stamped by the presiding officer and countersigned by candidates.

The Senate, instead, adopted the existing provision of the Electoral Act, which states that “the presiding officer shall transfer the results, including the total number of accredited voters and the results of the ballot, in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.”

Senate President Godswill Akpabio had, at a book launch at the weekend, explained that electronic transmission of results remains permissible, but the phrase “real time” was removed from the provision.

“All we said during the discussion was that we should remove the word ‘real-time’ because if you say real-time, then there is a network or grid failure, and the network is not working, when you go to court, somebody will say it ought to have been real-time. That was all we said,” he stated.

Protesters, including the 2023 presidential candidate of the Labour Party, converged on the entrance of the National Assembly in Abuja on Monday, for the “Occupy National Assembly” protest.

The demonstrator insisted that the lawmakers must be clear by including the phrase “real-time electronic transmission” in the proposed amendment.