The Politics of Discretion in Electronic Transmission: Will 2027 Elections Deliver?
In The Eighteenth Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte, Karl Marx asserts that, “Men make their own history, but they do not make it as they please; they do not make it under self-selected circumstances, but under circumstances existing already, given and transmitted from the past. The tradition of all dead generations weighs like a nightmare on the brains of the living.”
This observation is not simply a reflection on historical inevitability, but a warning about the structural and inherited constraints that shape political choices. In Nigeria’s electoral landscape, the repeated amendments to the Electoral Act, the contested adoption of electronic transmission, and the persistent reliance on manual collation is a clear reflection of a country negotiating with its historical burdens while attempting, imperfectly, to craft a credible democratic process.
Lawmakers are revising the Electoral Act again, but they are doing so under the weight of accumulated distrust, litigation, and contested outcomes from previous cycles. History is not neutral. It frames the expectations under which reform is judged.
The politics of discretion surrounding electronic transmission ahead of the 2027 elections illustrates Marx’s insight in real time. Lawmakers’ insistence on retaining manual result sheets as a fallback, despite near-universal network coverage and widespread technical feasibility, shows how inherited institutional practices, procedural ambiguities, and even political calculations continue to shape electoral reforms. What should have been a leap toward transparency risks becoming a regression, as structural weaknesses and discretionary allowances create opportunities for manipulation. History, it seems, is not only transmitted but operationalized in the present, consequently constraining reform while leaving citizens to navigate the consequences.
The Senate’s reversal on electronic transmission of election results has been welcomed in some quarters as a victory for transparency. After initially rejecting compulsory electronic transmission, lawmakers rescinded their position and approved electronic uploading of results as the primary method, while retaining manual transmission through Form EC8A in cases of technical failure.
On the surface, this appears to be a compromise. Electronic transmission is recognised. Manual collation is preserved as a safeguard, and for some, they believe balance has been restored.
However, I believe that electoral law must be judged not only by what it says, but by the incentives it creates.
The official formulation is simple. If electronic transmission fails due to network issues, the manual result sheet will be adopted, and truthfully, that sounds reasonable in a country with uneven infrastructure and periodic connectivity disruptions.
Yet the deeper concern lies in the discretion embedded within that sentence. Who determines that electronic transmission has failed? What constitutes a network issue? What evidence certifies that failure? And crucially, what prevents failure from becoming convenient?
Electronic transmission should not be seen merely as technological modernisation. It is a protective mechanism against manipulation during collation, an issue that has been historically regarded as the weakest link in Nigeria’s elections. Votes are cast in polling units, but disputes often arise during aggregation. It is in the movement from local tally to central collation that opacity has thrived. The promise of digital transmission, particularly through the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Result Viewing Portal, was to narrow that vulnerable space, and this is why a section of the populace has maintained that retaining manual collation as the decisive fallback preserves the architecture reform was meant to cure.
Technical experts involved in discussions around reform have argued that nationwide electronic transmission is largely feasible. Data cited during consultations suggests that approximately ninety eight per cent of polling units are within areas of network coverage, with only about two per cent classified as connectivity blind spots. Their recommendation was not abandonment of reform, but targeted infrastructure investment to close those gaps.
A report in the Guardian Newspaper of February 10, 2026 reports that Victor Oluwafemi of the Africa Development Studies Centre cautioned that real time transmission risks prioritising speed over integrity, pointing to deficiencies in electricity, telecom stability, cyber resilience, uniform training, and legal clarity. His warning deserves serious engagement. Elections still involve manual voting, manual counting, and physical documentation. Technology alone cannot correct structural weaknesses.
But infrastructure readiness must not become a permanent justification for preserving discretionary loopholes. Reform delayed in the name of caution can become reform diluted in effect.
Concerns also extend to legal ambiguity in the Senate’s amendment. The current version does not explicitly mandate electronic transmission through the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, nor does it clearly outline procedures in the event of technical failure. Where the law fails to define hierarchy between electronically transmitted results and manually collated forms, it risks creating conflicting standards of evidence. In a disputed election, which prevails? The digital record uploaded to a public portal, or the stamped paper form?
Another structural concern involves the legal status of regulations issued by the Independent National Electoral Commission. Many operational guidelines governing electronic transmission reside in subsidiary regulations rather than being entrenched directly in the Act itself. Subsidiary instruments do not carry the same weight as statutory provisions when subjected to judicial scrutiny. Lawyers will litigate on the basis of the Act, not administrative guidelines.
Nigeria’s struggle with electoral law clarity is not new. Since the return to democratic rule in 1999, the National Assembly has amended the Electoral Act at least five times, in 2002, 2006, 2010, 2015, and 2022, each aimed at strengthening credibility, transparency, and electoral integrity. Yet each amendment has produced mixed outcomes. The 2002 reforms followed the controversial 1999 elections and attempted to clarify collation procedures, but inconsistent enforcement meant disputes continued into the courts. The 2006 changes sought to harmonise timelines and accreditation rules, yet the 2007 polls were widely criticised for irregularities. The 2010 amendment introduced biometric accreditation and rigid timelines yet did little to prevent widespread litigation after the 2011 elections. The 2015 revisions were heralded as progressive, especially with greater powers for biometric verification, but the absence of clear provisions for real time transmission in subsequent cycles, especially 2019 and 2023, allowed collation doubts to fester. The 2022 Act was celebrated for attempting to legally embed electronic results transmission, but as the Supreme Court later clarified, gaps remained because process rules were not fully anchored in statute. Each amendment has been followed by litigation and public distrust.
The House of Representatives passed its version of the bill in December 2025, differing markedly from the Senate’s position. Civil society groups, opposition parties, and high-profile figures denounced the Senate’s version as a potential “deliberate assault on electoral transparency.” Section 60(3) of the Electoral Act, which the Senate retains, instructs electoral officers to transfer results “in a manner as prescribed by the Commission.” This ambiguity was at the heart of the 2023 polls controversies, where a reported “technical glitch” subverted real-time transmission, leaving outcomes highly contested. Delays in legislative harmonisation have already shortened INEC’s Notice of Election from 360 to 180 days, which has been regarded as a structural blow to electoral preparedness.
Reform in Nigeria has often been incremental in language but incomplete in structural design. Ambiguity survives successive amendments, and litigations thrive where ambiguity survives. With the 2027 general election approaching, the question is larger than Clause 60 or the phrase “real time”. It is about institutional intention. Is the objective to reduce discretion at the most vulnerable stage of the process, or to preserve flexibility under the cover of contingency?
Electronic transmission should not exist merely as symbolic inclusion within the Act. If it is to serve as genuine reform, then its primacy must be unambiguous. Backup systems are necessary in any complex infrastructure, but redundancy can be digital through parallel secure channels and engineered safeguards that preserve integrity without reverting to manual dominance.
When manual collation remains the decisive refuge in moments of technical failure, the door to interpretation remains open, and in high stakes elections, interpretation is rarely neutral.
Democratic credibility is not proclaimed. It is constructed carefully, word by word, clause by clause, under the weight of history.
As Marx observed, history presses on the present. The question now is whether this amendment lightens that weight or adds another layer to it.
Seun Perez Adekunle is a Political Science and International Relations lecturer who writes from Ibadan.