Following major pressure from trade unions and civil society, Nigeria's Senate on Tuesday reversed its earlier decision to reject plans for the real-time electronic transmission of election results in future. 

The vote last week against making the automatic and immediate uploading of results mandatory — a measure long championed by pro-reform groups as key to reducing risks of interference during manual vote collation — sparked widespread condemnation and public protests. 

The lower chamber of parliament, the House of Representatives, had approved the proposal before the Senate threw it out, with some members arguing the plan would prove impractical. 

Presidential elections expected a year from now

After an emergency meeting on the matter, the Senate said that members "approved the electronic transmission of election results... after the completion of all statutory procedures at the polling unit." 

It said the decision was unanimous and that it would boost "public confidence" and enable "citizens to follow the electoral process more transparently." 

Nigeria's next presidential election, when incumbent Bola Tinubu is likely to seek a second and final term, is scheduled for February 2027. 

Nigeria's largest trade union group threatened over the weekend to try to boycott the next vote entirely unless the changes were implemented. 

"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," NLC President Joe Ajaero said on Sunday.

Public skepticism and voter apathy high, long tradition of contested results

At the last presidential election in February 2023, turnout dipped to 27%, its lowest levels since Nigeria returned to democratic rule in 1999.

The result was challenged in court and ultimately had to go to the Supreme Court. 

Almost every election in Nigerian history, barring 2015 when Goodluck Jonathan conceded defeat, has faced legal challenges. Allegations of wrongdoing are commonplace albeit almost always unsuccessful before the judges.

Can the vast, violence-ridden country deliver real-time vote counts? 

Over the past decade, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has introduced various technology designed to improve the integrity and transparency of election results. 

However, the implementation and execution has proved extremely challenging and unsuccessful. 

In 2023's vote, the new online results database was much touted but proved an unreliable platform, with only around 10% of constituencies, mostly in the larger and wealthier cities and towns, managing to deliver prompt results. 

EU election observer Barry Andrews wrote after that vote that the plan to post itemized results online "were perceived as an important step to ensure the integrity and credibility of the eletions," but that "uploading the results ... did not work as expected." 

Conditions next February are not likely to be much better in Africa's most populous country.

Internet connections remain patchy in rural areas. The country's police and military is struggling to contain a string of often Islamist rebel and terrorist insurgencies, as well as criminal groups and gangs, in several different states. 

Delayed or extended voting has been commonplace in many of the roughly 176,000 polling stations nationwide for years for a variety of reasons, from security concerns to technical mishaps or simple overcrowding. 

Edited by: Wesley Dockery