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A former Nigerian minister and governance advocate, Obiageli Ezekwesili, has issued a public memo to the country’s National Assembly, warning lawmakers to “know when to stop playing with fire” over recent decisions concerning the Electoral Act amendment.
In the strongly worded statement on Thursday, Ezekwesili criticised the Senate for retaining what she described as a “dangerous ambiguity” in Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act 2022. The clause leaves the method and timing of transmitting election results to the discretion of the Independent National Electoral Commission.
“The Senate yesterday voted against a proposed amendment to make electronic transmission of election results mandatory and then proceeded to try to deceive Nigerians by claiming that it ‘did not reject electronic transmission,’” she wrote.
According to Ezekwesili, keeping the provision discretionary rather than compulsory reopens the same legal gap that fuelled controversy and public distrust during the 2023 general elections.
“By deliberately retaining the vague language, the Senate has once again weaponised ambiguity in our electoral law,” she stated.
She argued that optional electronic transmission “is no safeguard at all against systemic electoral fraud,” adding that the lawmakers’ defence of institutional flexibility does not justify opacity.
“Institutional independence does not require opacity, and flexibility should never be a cover for unverifiability,” she said.
Ezekwesili maintained that the 2023 elections tested Nigeria’s cohesion and that the country avoided unrest largely due to citizen restraint. Preserving the same legal uncertainty, she warned, risks repeating the crisis.
Calling for urgent legislative action, she urged senators to suspend their two-week break and reconvene to pass a clear provision mandating real-time uploads of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
