NLC Threatens Mass Action, Election Boycott Over Senate’s Stance on Electronic Transmission
The Nigeria Labour Congress has drawn a clear line in the sand over what it views as the Senate’s deliberate obfuscation on a fundamental pillar of electoral credibility: whether the nation’s votes will be electronically transmitted from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission in real time.
In a statement issued on Sunday, NLC President Joe Ajaero articulated the labour federation’s exasperation with what he termed “confusion and contradictory narratives” emanating from the upper chamber of the National Assembly. The statement was unambiguous on one critical point—the Congress would mobilise mass action and electoral boycotts should lawmakers fail to legislate mandatory electronic transmission of results before the next general election.
“The Nigeria Labour Congress expresses deep concern over the confusion and contradictory narratives emerging from the Senate regarding the amendment to the 2022 Electoral Act, particularly on electronic transmission of results,” the labour leader declared, capturing a sentiment that has roiled civil society organisations, opposition political figures, and voting rights advocates in the weeks following the Senate’s third reading of the Electoral Act 2022 (Repeal and Re-enactment) Amendment Bill on February 4, 2026.
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What transpired in that sitting exposed a fundamental fissure between public expectations and legislative action. Senators voted down Clause 60(3), the provision that would have transformed electronic transmission from a discretionary tool into a binding operational requirement. The rejected clause mandated that presiding officers at polling units transmit results electronically, directly to INEC’s Result Viewing portal, in real time.
Instead, lawmakers retained the existing language that characterises electronic transmission as permissive rather than compulsory. Under the retained provision, results may be transferred electronically only after votes have been counted and publicly announced at the polling unit level—a distinction that, to electoral observers and civil society, opens the door to post-hoc manipulation and undermines the verification principle that has become the gold standard in modern democratic elections.
The Senate’s decision arrived at a particularly fraught moment in Nigeria’s democratic trajectory. The 2023 general elections, contested and litigated extensively, left deep scars on public confidence in electoral administration. Many Nigerians believed the delayed and disputed transmission of results created space for irregularities and fuelled perceptions of unfairness. Advocates of mandatory real-time electronic transmission had positioned the reform as corrective—a technological safeguard against both actual fraud and the suspicions that breed democratic cynicism.
The NLC’s position reflects a broader frustration that extends across organised labour, civil rights groups, and the opposition. For these constituencies, the Senate’s retention of discretionary rather than mandatory transmission represents a retreat from the promise of transparent, verifiable elections that should be the foundation of representative democracy.
“Public records suggest the proposed amendment to mandate the Independent National Electoral Commission to transmit results electronically in real time was not adopted, with the existing discretionary provision retained,” the NLC said in its statement. “This has generated nationwide apprehension, and subsequent explanations have only added to the confusion.”
The labour body pressed the Senate to cease the legislative ambiguity immediately. In language that was both urgent and pointed, the Congress demanded that the upper chamber issue “an immediate, official, and unambiguous account” of the exact provisions passed, including the final wording and the legislative rationale behind the decision. The statement added a layer of severity to the demand, warning that legislative opacity at this stage could “institutionalise doubt within the electoral system.”
For context, Nigeria’s journey toward electronic election administration has been gradual and contested. The Independent National Electoral Commission has, over successive election cycles, incrementally integrated technology—first in voter registration through the Biometric Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), then in result collation through its Result Viewing portal. Yet the process has been marked by hesitation at critical junctures, often driven by concerns from political actors who fear that transparency mechanisms might expose electoral irregularities or reduce the room for post-election negotiations and political settlements.
The 2022 Electoral Act, which became law during the administration of former President Muhammadu Buhari, represented a watershed moment. It was celebrated by reform advocates as a landmark, introducing provisions that significantly elevated the role of electronic systems in elections. Yet even that legislation contained discretionary elements that critics argued created wiggle room for electoral administrators and political operatives alike.
The current amendment, ostensibly designed to further strengthen the electoral framework, has instead become a flashpoint. The Senate’s move to retain discretionary rather than mandate electronic transmission has been interpreted by many as a reversal of the momentum toward transparency that the 2022 Act was meant to establish.
Senate President Godswill Akpabio has defended the chamber’s position, insisting publicly that the Senate did not reject electronic transmission outright. Speaking at an event, Akpabio vowed not to be “intimidated” by the backlash, maintaining that the Senate’s decision was made in the best interests of the electoral process. His comments, however, have done little to clarify the precise nature of what was passed or the reasoning behind the choice to retain discretionary language rather than mandate real-time transmission.
The ambiguity itself has become the story. Where clarity should exist—on whether votes will be transmitted from polling units to INEC headquarters in real time, a process that would make result manipulation significantly more difficult—the Senate has instead left a gap that invites suspicion.
Civil society organisations and opposition figures have been scathing in their criticism. The decision has been characterised as a setback for democratic progress and, more pointedly, as legislation designed to protect incumbent advantage. The refrain across social media, civil rights forums, and opposition party communications has been consistent: without mandatory electronic transmission, elections remain vulnerable to the post-counting tampering that observers of Nigeria’s electoral history have documented.
The NLC’s threat of mass action and electoral boycott carries particular weight in Nigeria’s political economy. The labour federation commands the loyalty of millions of workers across the formal sector and has historically deployed strike action as a tool for political leverage. That Ajaero would invoke the prospect of boycotting elections is a significant escalation, signalling that the labour movement views the Senate’s position not merely as a technical matter of legislative drafting but as a fundamental question about the integrity of the democratic process itself.
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The Congress was explicit: “Failure to add electronic transmission in real time will lead to mass action before, during and after the election, or total boycott of the election.”
The labour body also drew a parallel to recent legislative tumult over taxation policy. The new Tax Acts passed by the National Assembly generated considerable public confusion and, in some cases, economic disruption. The NLC was warning that the Senate risks repeating that pattern with the Electoral Act amendment—legislating in ways that confuse rather than clarify, that obscure rather than illuminate, and that leave the public uncertain about how foundational processes actually work.
“Nigerian workers and citizens are watching closely,” the NLC statement read. “Our nation must choose the path of clarity and integrity. We need to avoid the same confusion that trailed the new Tax Acts. The time for honest, people-focused legislation is now.”
The immediate catalyst for the NLC’s statement and the broader uproar was the Senate’s February 4 vote. That sitting marked the culmination of a legislative process in which the amendment bill had progressed through earlier readings. The third reading, the point at which the bill effectively passed the Senate and moved toward the harmonisation process with the House of Representatives, became the moment where the Senate’s final position on electronic transmission crystallised.
The rejection of Clause 60(3) in that vote was, from a technical standpoint, straightforward—a legislative decision to maintain existing language. From a political and symbolic standpoint, however, the vote carried enormous weight. It signalled that the Senate, controlled by the ruling All Progressives Congress and chaired by Akpabio, was unwilling to legislate the kind of mandatory, real-time electronic transmission that would lock down electoral transparency at the technical level and, many argue, remove some of the discretion that allows political negotiation to occur after votes are cast.
The stakes of the amendment process have been heightened by the involvement of senior legal figures. Lawyer Femi Falana, a prominent human rights advocate and critic of electoral administration irregularities, has signalled the possibility of legal challenges to any Electoral Act that does not mandate electronic transmission. Such legal action, were it to be filed and pursued, could throw the electoral framework into constitutional uncertainty at precisely the moment when clarity and stability are most needed.
The Senate has now scheduled an emergency plenary sitting for Tuesday, February 10, 2026. The nature of that sitting—whether it will be an occasion for the Senate to reconsider the rejected amendment, to defend its earlier position, or to address some other urgent matter—remains unclear from official communications. Yet the timing, coming mere days after the public outcry and the NLC’s threat, suggests that pressure is mounting on the upper chamber to revisit its decision or at least to provide clarity that has heretofore been absent.
What is clear is that the Senate’s position on electronic transmission has become a symbol and a litmus test. For those who view Nigeria’s democratic development as contingent upon institutions and technology that make election rigging structurally more difficult, the Senate’s retention of discretionary transmission is a capitulation. For those who argue for political flexibility and the role of human judgment in electoral administration, the existing language may seem pragmatic.
Yet pragmatism that obscures cannot remain sustainable indefinitely, particularly when a labour federation commanding millions of workers has pledged to bring organised pressure to bear. The February 10 sitting will likely determine whether the Senate is willing to reconsider its stance or whether it will stand firm, accepting the political cost of doing so.
The broader implications are profound. Nigeria’s electoral credibility, both domestically and internationally, depends not merely on the integrity of individual officials but on systems and processes that make integrity the default rather than the exception. Technology, properly mandated and properly implemented, can contribute to that outcome. Discretion, however, leaves the system vulnerable to the very doubts and suspicions that have characterised Nigeria’s electoral experience.
The labour movement’s mobilisation on this issue suggests that the February 10 sitting will be a consequential one, not merely for the Electoral Act amendment itself but for what it reveals about the Senate’s commitment to the kind of transparent, verifiable democratic processes that the nation’s citizens have increasingly demanded.