***Urges committee to adop House of Reps’ version
For Senator Seriake Dickson, the battle over the Electoral Act amendment has moved beyond legislative disagreement. It is now a defining test of whether Nigeria’s democracy will be protected or quietly weakened through technical loopholes.
Addressing journalists in Abuja, the former Bayelsa State governor cast the National Assembly’s conference committee as the final gatekeeper of electoral credibility, warning that its decisions would either restore faith in elections or entrench public distrust that has lingered since the 2023 polls.
“This is no longer about the Senate or the House,” Dickson said. “It is about whether Nigerians can trust their votes.”
At the centre of the dispute is the Senate’s revised version of the Electoral Act amendment, which, while appearing to endorse electronic transmission of results, introduces an escape clause allowing manual results to prevail where network challenges are claimed. To Dickson, that single proviso threatens to reopen the very space election reforms were designed to close.
“Once you create exceptions, manipulation finds room to breathe,” he warned.
The House of Representatives, he noted, passed the bill exactly as agreed by the joint committee after nearly two years of consultations involving lawmakers, INEC, technical experts, and civil society actors. That version makes electronic transmission of results mandatory and unambiguous.
The Senate’s intervention, Dickson argued, did not refine the law—it diluted it.
He recalled that throughout committee engagements, INEC repeatedly assured lawmakers of its readiness to deploy nationwide electronic transmission, insisting that legal certainty, not legislative hesitation, was what the electoral body required.
“If the law is clear, INEC has no choice but to comply,” Dickson said. “Ambiguity is what creates excuses.”
The public backlash that followed the Senate’s initial amendment, he added, was a reflection of collective memory. Nigerians, he said, have seen how manual processes and delayed collation have historically been exploited to alter outcomes after votes are cast.
“Elections are not usually stolen at polling units,” he said. “They are stolen after—at collation centres, in the gaps between voting and final declaration.”
Electronic transmission, Dickson argued, compresses that window, locking in results while they are still fresh, verifiable, and publicly visible.
He also raised concerns that the Senate’s version strayed from agreed positions on party primaries, potentially empowering party elites at the expense of internal democracy. According to him, the joint committee deliberately preserved all three modes—consensus, direct, and indirect primaries—without coercion, a balance reflected only in the House version.
“This was a rare moment of cross-party agreement,” he said. “Walking away from it sends a dangerous signal.”
While Dickson acknowledged that the Senate’s emergency move to revisit the clause was prompted by intense public pressure, he said the attempt at correction fell short by retaining provisions that could be easily abused.
“You cannot cure mistrust with half-measures,” he said.
In an unusually personal moment, Dickson explained that his absence during critical Senate deliberations was due to the death of the Bayelsa State Deputy Governor, a tragedy that coincided with the controversial alterations to the bill. That timing, he said, made the outcome even more troubling.
Still, his message was not one of despair. Instead, he urged Nigerians to remain engaged, describing public vigilance as the most effective defence against democratic erosion.
“Democracy does not collapse in one dramatic moment,” he said. “It weakens quietly, clause by clause, if citizens look away.”
For the conference committee, Dickson said, the choice is stark: adopt the House version and close the loopholes, or endorse a compromise that risks normalising exceptions and weakening electoral certainty.
“This is the last line,” he said. “What they do now will shape not just the next election, but how Nigerians perceive their democracy for years to come.”
As the committee begins its harmonisation work, observers say the outcome will signal whether the National Assembly is prepared to confront Nigeria’s electoral ghosts—or leave the door ajar for their return.
