By Joyce Ekeh
A pro-APC group, Renewed Hope for Greater Nigeria, RHGN, has asked the Nigeria Democratic Congress, NDC, and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, to provide details of their proposed independent transmission of election results ahead of the 2027 general elections.
The group said clarification was necessary on how the proposed system would operate alongside the official results transmission process of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
Obi had, during an interview with Arise News on September 10, said his team would establish a system to transmit results from polling units to its own situation room, alongside transmission to the designated INEC platform.
Reacting to the development at a briefing in Umuahia, Deputy National Leader, South-East, of RHGN, Mazi Franklin Ngoforo, asked the NDC to explain the structure, operators and purpose of the proposed additional transmission channel.
Ngoforo said the issue had become more relevant following an earlier disclosure by Prof. Pat Utomi that the NDC was preparing an independent election-result transmission system for the 2027 polls. Utomi had said the system would enable results from polling units to be transmitted and monitored independently.
The RHGN chieftain said political parties had the right to monitor elections and maintain their own records, but stressed the need for clarity on how such records would relate to results transmitted, collated and declared under the statutory electoral process.
He said: “We need to know exactly what this second transmission channel is, who will operate it and what status it will have in relation to the official electoral process.
“Political parties can independently monitor elections, but Nigerians should not be left in a situation where two different sets of figures emerge without a clear understanding of which process has statutory authority.”
Ngoforo cited provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act governing INEC’s responsibilities and the electronic transmission of polling-unit results.
He urged the NDC to make public the safeguards that would guide its proposed system, particularly how discrepancies between party records and official results would be handled.
He also called on relevant security and electoral authorities to take note of the proposal and engage the parties involved where clarification was considered necessary.
Ngoforo said the objective should be to ensure that any technology deployed by political parties or other stakeholders complements, rather than creates confusion around, the established electoral process.
He added that transparency in the transmission and collation of results was essential to maintaining public confidence in the 2027 elections.
The RHGN leader urged all political parties and candidates to operate within the constitutional and legal framework governing the conduct of elections, while encouraging Nigerians to demand transparent and verifiable electoral processes.
