The Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, has taken aim at former Minister of Transportation, Rotimi Amaechi, accusing him of contradicting his past position on electronic transmission of election results.
During a media briefing on Monday, Wike rejected claims that the 2026 Electoral Act removes electronic transmission from Nigeria’s voting process. He clarified that the legislation retains electronic transmission but introduces a fallback option allowing manual submission of results in areas where network coverage fails.
According to Wike, the safeguard was designed to ensure that voters are not disenfranchised due to technological limitations.
He recalled that when the debate over electronic voting arose under former President Muhammadu Buhari’s administration, some top officials opposed it.
“Under Buhari, the issue of electronic voting came up; people like Rotimi Amaechi were in government; they said, ‘No, don’t sign; if you sign, you lose the election.’ This is the same person now calling for electronic transmission,” Wike said.
He alleged that Amaechi’s earlier resistance was politically motivated.
“While he was here, he refused simply because he felt his boss would be affected. Now we are here. They did not say there should not be electronic transmission. All they said is, ‘In case, which is likely, let us not disenfranchise people by not allowing their votes to be counted,’” he stated.
Wike also weighed in on the Act’s endorsement of direct primaries for political parties, arguing that the alternative favours those with financial and structural advantage.
“When you do indirect, you allow the rich ones to buy all the delegates. You allow the governor to dictate who will be there. Now, people have taken steps to see how they will be able to reduce that, and it has become a problem,” he said.
The FCT minister maintained that direct primaries could curb the influence of money and reduce the dominance of powerful officeholders within party systems.
“We have cried here that governors and ministers are the ones who have all the resources, and if you allow it, they will buy all the delegates. Why not go for direct primaries? Now, the National Assembly in their own wisdom said, ‘Can we also make a trial of this?’ because we will continue to amend and improve on this from time to time,” he added.
Amaechi had earlier joined demonstrators at the National Assembly on February 10, alleging that the ruling All Progressives Congress was uncomfortable with electronic transmission because it feared losing elections.
“I believe that the opposition parties should come out, PDP, ADC, everybody should be out, to protest against the attempt of one party,” Amaechi said.
