- Nigeria Not Ready for Electronic Transmission of Results – Ex INEC Commissioner
- He argues electronic transmission cannot work without electronic voting.
- Lecky urges INEC to improve existing BVAS and result portal systems.
A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Mustapha Lecky, has said Nigeria is neither legally nor technically prepared for the real time electronic transmission of election results.
Lecky made the assertion on Friday evening during an appearance on Channels Television, where he addressed ongoing debates surrounding the use of technology in Nigeria’s electoral process.
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EKO HOT BLOG reports that
He argued that discussions about instant transmission of results from polling units were misplaced, noting that elections in Nigeria are still conducted manually and not through electronic voting.
“I think it doesn’t really make sense to me that we should be talking about instantaneous transmission of results live as it is happening from the polling area. It doesn’t make sense because we don’t do electronic voting anywhere,” he said.
The former INEC commissioner explained that electronic transmission of results could only logically follow the adoption of electronic voting, which he said Nigeria was far from implementing.
“Are we doing electronic voting? We are very far away from it,” he added.
Lecky noted that the current electoral process requires ballots to be physically cast and counted at polling units before results are documented and uploaded. He stressed that this procedure already ensures transparency and public accountability.
“People are still coming with paper ballots… you have to count them for everybody to see one by one… before you now fill out the form EC8A, which is the most important document that needs to be filled and signed by all the agents representing the parties,” he said.
He described calls for real time electronic transmission as baseless, insisting that Nigeria lacked the technical infrastructure to support such a system nationwide. According to him, poor mobile network coverage across thousands of polling units remains a major obstacle.
“For electronic transmission, we are not ready. We are not technically ready,” Lecky said.
He further warned that pushing for instant transmission without adequate safeguards could expose elections to cyber risks, especially given Nigeria’s fragile digital capacity.
Lecky advised INEC to continue relying on existing tools such as the Result Viewing Portal and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System until they function optimally.
“So what we need to do, I think, in terms of this transmission of results, is to rely on what is currently available and make sure it works perfectly, and it can work perfectly,” he stated.
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