At a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, accused INEC of deliberately sabotaging the electronic transmission of results during the 2023 presidential election in order to aid rigging, insisting that nothing short of real-time result uploads from polling units would be acceptable in 2027.
Nigeria’s opposition party, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has declared that it will resist any attempt by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) or the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) to manipulate the 2027 general elections through technical failures, warning that “the era of glitches is over.”
At a press briefing in Abuja on Monday, PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, accused INEC of deliberately sabotaging the electronic transmission of results during the 2023 presidential election in order to aid rigging, insisting that nothing short of real-time result uploads from polling units would be acceptable in 2027.
“There must be no glitches in 2027. If POS machines work seamlessly across the remotest parts of this country, then INEC cannot claim that its BVAS machines suddenly fail on election day. That would be deliberate, institutional manipulation, and Nigerians will not accept it,” Ologunagba warned.
He stressed that Section 64 (4), (5) and (6) of the Electoral Act 2022 mandates electronic recording and transmission of results directly from polling units, saying INEC’s excuses about system breakdowns were “a calculated effort to subvert the will of the people.”
The PDP spokesman said the party would lead efforts to safeguard democracy, declaring: “Votes must count and be counted. The only way democracy can thrive is for INEC to guarantee real-time transmission of results to prevent manipulation. Any attempt to abridge Nigerians’ rights to choose their leaders will be firmly resisted by our party and by the Nigerian people.”
Ologunagba further lashed out at the APC for what he described as “early electioneering and endorsement shopping,” claiming the ruling party was panicking over PDP’s resurgence.
“If the APC and President Bola Tinubu were truly performing, they wouldn’t need endorsements. The real endorsement is in the lives of the people. Nigerians cannot feed their families, pay school fees, or afford basic necessities, yet this government continues to impose policies like the proposed five per cent tax on petroleum products coming in January. That is not governance; it is punishment,” he said.
He accused the Tinubu government of abandoning governance for politics, warning that Nigerians were tired of propaganda and “photo opportunities splashed across newspapers while hunger and poverty deepen.”
The PDP’s demand for electoral transparency received backing from the African Democratic Congress (ADC). Its National Publicity Secretary, Bolaji Abdullahi, told journalists that electronic transmission of results was “an absolute necessity.”
“If establishing a legal framework for the electronic transmission of election results will compel INEC to act rightly and deepen transparency in our electoral process, then the ADC will stand firmly in support of it,” Abdullahi said.
Both opposition parties insisted that INEC has no excuse to fail in 2027, arguing that the same technology that powers nationwide banking transactions must also be deployed to protect the sanctity of Nigeria’s votes.