A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared that Nigeria lacks the necessary preparedness to implement full, real-time electronic transmission of election results. This assessment raises significant questions about the country’s ability to execute a key provision of the Electoral Act 2022 aimed at boosting transparency.
The official, who served during the previous electoral cycle, pointed to persistent structural deficits as the core obstacle. These include unreliable network coverage in vast rural areas, inadequate cybersecurity safeguards, and persistent threats of violence against electoral officials and infrastructure at the collation level.
Infrastructure and Legal Hurdles
The former commissioner argued that the legal framework envisioning seamless digital transmission clashes with the on-ground reality. “The expectation of real-time transmission assumes a level of technological stability and national infrastructure that is currently aspirational,” the official stated. This gap, they noted, creates vulnerabilities that can be exploited to undermine public confidence, as witnessed during the controversies surrounding the 2023 general elections and the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
Implications for Electoral Integrity
This warning suggests that without massive, coordinated investment in both technology and security, the electoral process may continue to face crippling disputes over result management. The statement implicitly calls for a more pragmatic, phased approach to digitizing Nigeria’s elections or a concerted national effort to bridge the identified gaps before the next polls.
Ultimately, the critique underscores the complex challenge of modernizing elections in a large, diverse nation, where legal aspirations must be matched by tangible operational readiness.
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