The D-37 hereby declares that the Nigerian Senate has crossed a red line in its open, deliberate, and sustained assault on democratic governance. By rejecting mandatory electronic transmission of election results and preserving the lethal ambiguities of the Electoral Act (EA) 2022, the Senate has positioned itself as the single most dangerous institutional threat to Nigeria’s democratic future.
This is no longer a matter of legislative disagreement. It is a matter of democratic survival.
At a time when nations across Africa are strengthening electoral transparency, the Nigerian Senate has chosen retrogression. While citizens demand credibility, accountability, and trust in the ballot, the Senate has opted for concealment, manipulation, and elite self-preservation.
Let the record reflect this truth plainly: The Senate did not fail democracy — it betrayed it.
The House of Representatives, acting in line with global best practices and in response to judicial precedents that exposed fatal flaws in the law, courageously amended the EA 2022 to mandate electronic transmission of election results. This amendment replaced the intentionally deceptive word “transfer” with the precise, enforceable, and technologically correct word “transmit” — thereby closing a loophole that has been exploited to subvert election outcomes.
The Senate’s refusal to harmonise this amendment is not ignorance. It is intent.
By sustaining ambiguity, the Senate has deliberately preserved a system where results are altered in back rooms, elections are decided after voting ends, and courts are forced to legitimise fraud dressed up as adherence to procedure.
This conduct places the Nigerian Senate in direct opposition to:
The will of the Nigerian electorate;
International democratic norms;
ECOWAS and African Union electoral principles; and
Nigeria’s own constitutional promise of representative government.
To Nigeria’s development partners, diplomatic missions, election observer groups, and democracy-support institutions: We want to say, silence is no longer neutrality — it is complicity.
A legislature that refuses transparent elections cannot be a credible partner in democratic governance. Nigeria cannot credibly speak of reform while its Senate actively sabotages the very mechanism through which citizens choose their leaders.
To the Nigerian people, especially the youth, civil society, labour movements, professional bodies, and the diaspora:
This moment demands democratic resistance;
Not violence and not despair. But sustained, organised, civic pressure.
Democracy is never gifted by institutions that profit from its absence. It is demanded, defended, and enforced by citizens who refuse to surrender their future.
The position of the D-37 is absolute:
The Senate must immediately and unconditionally harmonise the Electoral Act amendment with the House of Representatives version mandating electronic transmission of election results.
The harmonised law must be published transparently and subjected to full public scrutiny.
Any continued reliance on the defective EA 2022 constitutes a rejection of electoral credibility and an endorsement of systemic fraud.
Electronic transmission of results is not radical.
What is radical is a Senate that fears transparency.
What is extreme is a legislature that governs against its people.
Nigeria stands at a crossroads:
One path leads to democratic renewal.
The other leads to permanent electoral deceit and institutional decay.
The Senate must choose — and Nigerians, supported by the international democratic community, will hold it accountable for that choice.
History is watching.
The people are awake.
And the D-37 will not relent.
Signed,
Alex Ter Adum, Ph.D
Secretary
For: D-37
