A Review of the Legal Framework Governing Electoral Processes and Technological Integration in Nigeria

Abstract

Electoral integrity and technological innovation are critical to sustaining public trust in democratic governance. The enactment of the Electoral Act (Amendment) Act, 2026 followed sustained public and judicial scrutiny of the shortcomings of the Electoral Act, 2022. During the 2023 general election, a substantial proportion of polling-unit results, on some accounts under a third within thirty-six hours of the close of polls, were not uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal, a gap that fuelled widespread allegations of manipulation and gave rise to extensive post-election litigation. The Supreme Court, interpreting section 60 of the 2022 Act in Oyetola & Anor v INEC & Ors, held that the electronic transmission of results to the Portal was not a mandatory condition precedent to the validity of an election, since the 2022 Act left the manner of transmission of results to the discretion of the Commission rather than prescribing electronic transmission as a binding legal requirement. That ruling, while doctrinally sound, was widely perceived as exposing a legislative gap: the 2022 Act had introduced the technology of electronic transmission without correspondingly elevating it to a binding legal obligation, leaving room for disputes as to whether figures on the Portal or manually collated figures should prevail where the two diverged.