The Minister of the FCT, Nyesom Wike, has accused former Minister of Transportation Rotimi Amaechi and other opposition figures of double standards over the issue of electronic transmission of election results in the Electoral Act.
Wike, who spoke during a media chat on Monday, was reacting to the opposition’s rejection of the new 2026 Electoral Act recently signed by the president, particularly the proviso that allows manual transmission of results where electronic transmission fails because of bad network.
He accused Amaechi of persuading former President Muhammadu Buhari not to sign the provision approving electronic transmission of results when they were in power, questioning why the former minister is now complaining about a provision he once opposed.
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“Remember under Buhari, the issue of electronic transmission came. People like Rotimi Amaechi, they were in government, they said ‘no, don’t sign, if you sign you lose election’.
“And this is the same person now who is coming out in the public to say there should be electronic transmission, but he refused simply because he felt his boss would be affected,” Wike said.
He maintained that the new Electoral Act does not prohibit electronic transmission of results but seeks to prevent disenfranchisement by allowing manual transmission where electronic transmission fails.
“Now we are here, they did not say there should not be electronic transmission. All they said is in case, and which is likely, let us not disenfranchise people by not allowing their votes to be counted,” he said.
The former Rivers State governor also addressed another contentious provision in the Electoral Act requiring political parties to conduct direct primaries.
Wike argued that indirect primaries allow wealthy individuals, including governors and ministers, to dominate party structures.
He said the direct primary system introduced by the new law would correct that imbalance.
Wike further described Nigerians as “professional complainants,” arguing that they previously criticised indirect primaries for concentrating power in the hands of party elites and moneybags.
Last week, opposition parties including the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP), called on the National Assembly to immediately begin a fresh amendment process to remove what they described as “all obnoxious provisions” in the Electoral Act 2026.
They said said the amended law, signed by President Bola Tinubu, contains “anti-democratic” clauses, which they argue may weaken electoral transparency and public confidence in the voting system.
