“The Transparency Sabotage!” Atiku Blasts Senate for Killing Mandatory E-Transmission of Results in New Electoral Bill

The battle for Nigeria’s 2027 electoral soul has taken a dramatic turn as former Vice President Atiku Abubakar slammed the Nigerian Senate for rejecting a law that would have made the electronic transmission of election results compulsory.

On Wednesday, the “Red Chamber” passed the 2026 Electoral Act Amendment Bill but deliberately left out the clause that would have forced INEC to upload polling unit results to a public portal in real-time. Instead, the Senate voted to keep the process “discretionary,” giving the electoral body the power to decide when—or if—they want to use the technology.

In a scathing response released from his media office, Atiku described the Senate’s decision as a “calculated assault on the integrity of our democracy.” He argued that by leaving result transmission in the “shadows of discretion,” the lawmakers have essentially invited the return of “result-sheet sorcery” where numbers are changed between the polling units and collation centers.

“The Senate has chosen to side with the forces of darkness rather than the light of transparency,” Atiku’s statement read. “After the controversial experience of 2023, Nigerians expected a law that removes human interference. By rejecting mandatory e-transmission, the Senate has told Nigerians that their votes might still be subject to ‘adjustments’ in transit.”

The Senate’s stance has created a major legislative deadlock. Just two months ago, the House of Representatives took the opposite path, voting overwhelmingly to make real-time electronic uploads mandatory.

While the Senate did make some updates such as officially writing the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) into the law and increasing fines for PVC theft to ₦5 million critics say these are “minor repairs on a broken engine.”

As the bill moves to a harmonization committee to resolve the differences between the two chambers, Atiku has called on civil society groups and the Nigerian public to “mount a wall of resistance” against any law that keeps the electoral process in the dark.