..Describes Senators as retrogressives
Chairman, Imo State People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Caretaker Committee, Ikenga Jonjude Okere, has faulted the Senate for discarding the Electronic Voting in the 2027 elections, describing the anomaly as very undemocratic and an attempt by the ruling APC to rig the polls at their own favor and to the peril of the people.
The Imo State PDP Chairman, in an epistle he made available to the media on Monday, attributed the discarding of the electronic voting by the Senators as a huge setback on the country’s democracy and electoral system.
Describing the Senators as retrogressives, Okere regretted that the sinister move was to gag the opposition, soffocate the masses and invent one party system in the polity to undermine democracy and heighten totalitarianism which he said may give rise to authoritarianism and anarchy.
“Real-time electronic transmission of results is neither compulsory nor central to our electoral laws, they have exposed themselves as retrogressive minds determined to drag Nigeria back into the woods by sustaining the days of ballot box, sensitive electoral materials snatching and result.
“For reference purposes, this is the year 2026 and under the President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led APC administration, democracy is taking a clear nose-dive and there’s no polite way to put it.
“The troubling signs are everywhere, as political moneybags are emptying themselves wholesale into the APC, not because of people oriented ideologies or quest for administrative performance, but because power has become a magnet for survival in politics. This mass defection culture is unhealthy, not just for our political ecosystem, but for the quality of leadership it produces.
“When politics becomes a refuge for opportunists rather than a platform for service, governance suffers. Democracies do not die overnight; they are slowly starved or suffocated of competition, accountability and ideas.
“That starvation is exactly what Nigeria is experiencing under President Bola Ahmed Tinubu led APC administration. The current crop of Senators led by Godswill Akpabio has not helped matters.
“By concluding that real-time electronic transmission of results is neither compulsory nor central to our electoral laws, they have exposed themselves as retrogressive minds determined to drag Nigeria back into the woods by sustaining the days of ballot box, sensitive electoral materials snatching and result mutilation just to secure their seats and silence opposition.
“Let’s be honest: the limited credibility recorded in recent elections was largely driven by technology, The Bimodal Voting Accreditation System (BVAS), digital uploads to the IReV portal and quicker result visibility that reduced blatant manipulation.
“That same technology gave our teeming tech-savvy youths a reason to believe their votes might actually count, and they showed up in unprecedented numbers. In the case like the present assault on democracy by the Senate for not endorsing real time electronic transfer of results from the polling units says everything about the character, competence and how much those who represent us at the Senate take us serious. Remove electronic transmission and you remove transparency.
“Remove transparency and you invite chaos and anarchy. That path leads not to stability, but to political doom.
“This is where citizens must draw a red line. Nigerians must lend their voices, loudly and deliberately, to reject this backward move by Senators who are far beyond their prime and painfully disconnected from modern democratic realities.
“Democracy is participatory, not ornamental. If citizens retreat into apathy and leave politics entirely to politicians, the outcome is predictable: we will continue to churn out the worst among us as leaders. Electoral reforms were not gifted to Nigerians; they were fought for, so any attempt to roll them back should be discouraged.
“In the objective clarity of calling a spade a spade, one stands corrected if one says that the Godswill Akpabio led Senate portrays the APC national government as one with the agenda for political dominance beyond winning elections in 2027; the exact reason they want to control the process itself by weakening electronic transmission and diluting electoral safeguards, the party signals a desire not just to frustrate the hopes of voters in 2027, but to engineer a system that perpetuates its hold on power.
“History is instructive: ruling parties that fear transparent elections often redesign the rules, not the performance. This is not about national interest; it is about political dominance, and it risks making a complete mess of Nigeria’s already fragile politics.
“This is nothing short of democratic sabotage and my appeal to the masses is for them to take proper note of those that think less of them; those that want them to surrender their power as citizens to their selfish game of retaining power; meanwhile same power in their hold is not in the interest of the people. For further reference this is February the month of the Senate assault on Nigeria democracy; regardless I lend my voice for the defense of electoral transparency, I stand for real time electronic transmission of results.
“Democracy must be defended in the open, with the people fully involved and we must raise our voice against this shenanigan scripted in backrooms. I hereby invoke History to not be forgiving to those who will watch in silence while our democracy gets assaulted and dismantled”, he echoed.
