There is anxiety amongst Nigerians and political parties over the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to upload the presidential and National Assembly election results hours after the exercise ended in most polling units across the country.
IReV, which stands for INEC Results Viewing Portal, is a platform which enables the people to view election results real time from various polling units across the country.
The IReV was put to use in the recent off-season elections, including the Ekiti and Osun governorship polls which gave credibility to the exercise.
The portal is also backed by the 2022 Electoral Act which gives INEC the power to deploy appropriate technologies for the conduct of elections in the country.
Section 41(1) gives the commission the mandate to provide suitable boxes, electronic voting machines, or any other voting devices for the conduct of elections.
Section 47(2) requires the presiding officer to use a smart card reader or any other technological device prescribed by the commission to verify, confirm, authenticate, and accredit voters. Section 50(2) states that subject to Section 63, voting at an election and transmission of results shall be in accordance with the procedure defined by INEC.
Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman had at a briefing penultimate to the general election said the commission has vast experience in election results transmission via the iReV.
“We have tremendous experience in transmitting results real time in Nigeria. We successfully transmitted results for 105 constituencies nationwide,” he said.
But the reverse ended up being the case even when Yakubu himself confirmed that results were being received from polling units across the country.
“Polling units in a large number of areas have closed and we started the counting of ballot papers,” he said.
BusinessDay checks showed the election results are not being uploaded to the iReV as promised by INEC and there is anxiety amongst Nigerians about the development, at the point of going to bed.
This is amplified by the Labour Party, a third force in the Nigerian political firmament which alleged that results of the presidential elections collated in various polling units in Lagos state are not being uploaded to the Central Server.
Lagos is the home state of Bola Tinubu, the presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Julius Abure, the national chairman of Labour Party who raised the alarm said: “Information reaching me has it that in Lagos, they have refused to upload the results for the presidential election, they have uploaded that of the Senate and House of Representatives but for the presidential, they have refused.
Read also: LP kicks over absence of polling unit results on INEC portal
“And they are using the police to drive our agents and supporters out of the place. And they said that they have firm instruction from INEC headquarters not to upload.
“For example, in Kosofe, they put the collation centre in a Local Government Area Headquarters. The place is sorrounded by APC and people are afraid of their life.
“They are not uploading, they said that they have been giving instruction to insist that the BVAS is faulty. And most of the places we won, but they have refused to upload.”
Abure however called on INEC to ensure that only genuine and verifiable results generated from the various polling units should be uploaded.
Similarly, Samson Itodo, the Eexecutive director of Yiaga Africa said one of the most exciting part of the Electoral Act, 2022 was the electronic transmission of results.
He however, lamented that unfortunately, as at 10pm the iReV has not been uploaded, saying this cast aspersions on the integrity of the ballot and its implications on the entire process.
“There are lots of reasons. One, some Senatorial elections and House of Representatives elections, their results are on the portal, but the big question is how come presidential election results are not yet on the INEC portal?
“I think that it’s important to wait to hear from the Electoral Commission on what’s the reason because this entire scenario cast a lot of doubt on the result of the elections.
“For us at Yiaga, we have expressed our concerns, and they need to explain because this portal was well celebrated by Nigerians and outside because there are even many African countries who have come to us for help and to study how we are using technology, so it’s important that INEC comes out to explain to Nigerians what happened.
“And I think that this is where the deployment of party agents is critical, because at the polling units, the agent is entitled to a copy of the result sheet,” Itodo said.
At the time of this report, INEC officials were yet to respond to enquiries by our correspondent.
