The Nigerian Society of Engineers (NSE) has declared its full support for the real-time electronic transmission of election results, describing it as a critical step toward enhancing the integrity, efficiency, and credibility of Nigeria’s electoral process.
The professional body faulted the reasons advanced by the Nigerian Senate for rejecting a proposal that sought to make electronic transmission of results from polling units to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ReV portal mandatory.
Earlier in February, the Senate had declined the proposal, citing poor network coverage, cybersecurity risks, infrastructure deficiencies, and the possibility of legal disputes arising from transmission failures. The lawmakers consequently retained the existing provision allowing INEC to transmit election results “in a manner prescribed by the Commission.”
However, the NSE argued that these concerns do not align with the realities of modern engineering and technological capabilities. According to the Society, from a technical standpoint, “electronic transmission offers clear advantages capable of significantly improving electoral transparency and operational efficiency.”
The NSE noted that manual transmission of results, which relies heavily on physical transportation of result sheets, remains vulnerable to loss, tampering, and manipulation. In contrast, secure digital systems incorporating end-to-end encryption, digital signatures, and authentication protocols can safeguard data integrity and drastically limit human interference.
The society further explained that real-time digital uploads would accelerate result collation and announcement, reducing waiting periods from days to hours. It added that the “deployment of 4G and 5G cellular networks, satellite communication systems, and offline data caching solutions can effectively address connectivity challenges, particularly in remote locations ”.
On accuracy and transparency, the NSE stated that digital record-keeping minimizes transcription errors common in manual processes, while technologies such as blockchain-based ledgers, timestamped records, and application programming interfaces (APIs) can provide immutable audit trails for public verification.
While acknowledging the initial capital investment required, the society maintained that electronic transmission would deliver long-term cost savings by reducing expenditure on printing, logistics, and manual handling. It added that scalable cloud-based platforms are capable of efficiently managing Nigeria’s more than 176,000 polling units, supported by redundancy systems to prevent data loss.
Drawing from international best practices, the NSE referenced successful implementations in countries such as Estonia and India, noting that Nigeria possesses the technical capacity to adopt similar systems within INEC’s existing digital framework.
“The Nigerian Society of Engineers hereby declares its full support for the real-time electronic transmission of election results as a strategic tool for strengthening Nigeria’s democratic process,” the statement concluded.