Nigeria stands again at a dangerous crossroads. The debate over electoral law reform and the method of transmitting election results is no longer a technical legislative matter. It is now a national stability issue. Any deliberate weakening of transparency safeguards, especially around real time electronic transmission and result collation, will not be seen by citizens as procedure. It will be seen as preparation for fraud. And in today’s tense political climate, that perception alone is combustible.
Across the country, public trust in elections has already been badly eroded. Allegations of altered figures on polling unit result sheets, disputed collation processes, and inconsistencies between field results and final tallies have deepened skepticism. When citizens see numbers allegedly mutilated on official forms and observe resistance to transparent digital transmission, they do not interpret it as legislative nuance. They interpret it as intent.
Over 2024 and 2025, lawmakers, INEC officials, civil society partners, and political stakeholders reportedly participated in broad consultations, hearings, and retreats aimed at strengthening the electoral framework. Central to those reform discussions were three pillars: mandatory electronic transmission and real time upload of results, regulated flexibility in party primaries, and clear election timelines. These pillars were presented to the public as confidence building measures. They were not cosmetic. They were trust infrastructure.
Reports that the electronic transmission requirement may be weakened, diluted, or replaced with ambiguous language are therefore alarming to citizens who followed the reform process in good faith. When a reform that allegedly enjoyed overwhelming committee and floor support appears threatened at harmonization stage, suspicion multiplies. Democracy runs not only on law but on legitimacy. Once legitimacy collapses, law alone cannot hold order together.
The argument is simple and unavoidable. The more opaque the collation process becomes, the more disputed the outcome will be. The more disputed the outcome, the higher the probability of mass rejection. The higher the rejection, the greater the risk of nationwide protest, civil disobedience, and institutional breakdown. Electoral opacity is not neutral. It is destabilizing.
Nigeria’s political temperature is already elevated. Many citizens believe that institutions are captured, opposition space is shrinking, and internal party competition is being managed rather than contested. Whether these claims are fully accurate or not is less important than the fact that they are widely believed. Governance must respond not only to facts but to public confidence. When confidence is low, transparency must be increased, not reduced.
Real time electronic transmission of polling unit results is not a luxury. It is now a democratic minimum. It protects not only voters but winners. A candidate who wins transparently is stronger than one declared through a disputed process. A government born from verifiable votes governs with authority. One born under a cloud governs under permanent resistance.
If reforms that enhance transparency are blocked or reversed, many Nigerians will conclude that peaceful democratic change has been structurally obstructed. That is the most dangerous conclusion any population can reach. History shows that when citizens lose faith in ballots, they shift their faith to the streets. No responsible leadership should allow that drift to begin.
What Nigeria needs before 2027 is not clever legal wording. It needs unmistakable transparency guarantees that reassure every voter that their ballot will be counted exactly as cast and instantly visible to all
By Hon. Chima Nnadi-Oforgu
http://www.oblongmedia.net
OBLONG MEDIA UNLIMITED 
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