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Nigerian Democratic Congress (NDC) presidential candidate in the 2027 elections, Peter Obi, has said his team will set up an independent system to transmit election results from polling units to its operations room during general elections.
Obi revealed this during an exclusive interview on Arise Television on Thursday, explaining that the system would enable his team to receive, monitor and verify polling unit results as they are recorded.
The former Anambra State governor said the agreement will operate in parallel with the official broadcast of results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Obi explains the dual transmission plan
Obi said his team will ensure that results recorded at polling units are properly documented and transmitted through an additional channel to their operations room.
“We need to make sure that at every polling station votes are counted, votes are recorded correctly and votes are transmitted correctly.
“And we will also have a dual broadcast so that while it goes to the designated INEC portal, it is also broadcast where people can see it,” he said.
The proposal, according to Obi, aims to strengthen the transparency of the electoral process and ensure that the announced results can be traced back to the polling stations where the votes were cast and counted.
Obi rejects call for parallel IReV system
When asked if his plan to have multiple systems similar to INEC’s results viewing portal across the country amounted to creating a parallel results transmission system, Obi disagreed.
“All we are saying is that this time we will make sure that in every polling unit there is a system that transmits the correct results to our operations room,” he said.
He said the independent monitoring arrangement will not replace INEC’s official process but will provide an additional mechanism through which his team can monitor results and compare them with official figures.
Obi also said other organizations could set up similar systems, arguing that having more independent monitoring mechanisms would help boost trust in the electoral process.
“We’re not going to have a situation where someone says something that doesn’t come from the polling unit. Our job is to make sure the right things are done,” he said.
Obi says transparent elections are possible
The NDC candidate said a transparent and credible election is achievable, citing Ghana and other countries as examples of nations where electoral processes have shown that greater transparency is possible.
He said the focus should be on ensuring that votes cast by Nigerians are accurately counted, recorded and reflected in the final results.
Obi also described the 2027 elections as a competition that should go beyond the traditional rivalry between political parties.
According to him, elections should ultimately be about Nigerians and the kind of government they want, rather than boiling down to a competition between political parties and their candidates.
He argued that the measures he proposed aimed to protect the integrity of the electoral process and ensure that the outcome of the elections reflected the actual votes cast at polling stations.
