Nigerian protesters marched to the National Assembly on Monday to voice their anger at legislators approving changes to electoral laws, while omitting a key reform demanded by the opposition.
The demonstrators, led by Peter Obi, the Labour Party¡¯s presidential candidate in 2023, want results from next year¡¯s vote to be uploaded online in real time. The electoral commission¡¯s plans to do this three years ago ¡ª even though it wasn¡¯t mandatory ¡ª never materialized, fueling allegations of corruption.
¡°Simple transmission, it¡¯s not a difficult thing,¡± Obi said in front of parliament where he joined hundreds of his mostly young supporters, who still insist he won the last vote. ¡°Allow the elections to go through the normal process, whoever wins we will accept.¡±
The Independent National Electoral Commission blamed a systemic glitch for its failure to instantaneously upload tallies from more than 100,000 polling stations as they came in in 2023, as its guidelines required. That failure was the main thrust of an opposition challenge to the outcome of the first-past-the-post presidential race, which Bola Tinubu won with just 36% support.
Nigeria¡¯s Supreme Court ruled in October 2023 that it wasn¡¯t compulsory for Inec to produce real-time results under the electoral law.
The legislation needs to be amended to ensure the commission reflects the real-time electronic transmission of election results ¡°so that the true will of the Nigerian people can be transparently and accurately reflected,¡± the main opposition African Democratic Congress said in a statement.
The Nigerian Senate, whose leader Godswill Akpabio has said that the opposition demand can¡¯t be met because some parts of the country lack internet coverage, has called an emergency session of the legislature on Tuesday, Punch newspaper reported.
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