Off-Season Polls: Electronic Collation illegal, Says INEC

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission has insisted that electronic collation of results is illegal in Nigeria.

The commission said this against the backdrop of expectations that the results of Saturday’s off-cycle governorship elections in Imo, Kogi, and Bayelsa states would be transmitted electronically.

The Chief Press Secretary to the INEC chairman, Rotimi Oyekanmi, made the clarification to one of our correspondents on Wednesday, as the police in Imo State warned the organised labour against intimidating voters during the election in the state.

There has been a clamour for electronic transmission of election results in the country with the issue forming a core plank of the presidential election petitions filed at the Presidential Election Petitions Court by the Peoples Democratic Party and the Labour Party.

But Oyekanmi clarified that the result viewing portal was not for collating election results or determining the winner; neither was the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System an electronic voting machine.

When asked how results from the polling units would be transmitted after voting had been concluded in the governorship polls in the three states, Oyekanmi explained, “Polling unit election results, also known as Form EC8As, will be uploaded directly to the INEC Result Viewing Portal from the individual PUs by the presiding officers after the close of poll and declaration of results at that level.

“Presiding Officers are expected to use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System to snap the Form EC8A and upload the same to the IReV after the conclusion of all processes at the various polling units.

“However, people need to understand that the IReV is not for collating election results or determining the winner, while the BVAS is also not an electronic voting machine.

“To be sure, electronic voting or collation of results is illegal in Nigeria at the moment. All that the IReV portal does is just to display the Form EC8A uploaded from the polling units for the public to see.

“The process for determining and declaring the winner of a governorship election is well encapsulated in section 179 of the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria.”

Speaking on the logistics arrangement the commission had made for the distribution of materials given the strike declared by the organised labour in Imo State, the chief press secretary noted, “In the area of logistics for Imo State, we already have an agreement with individual vehicle owners and the NURTW (National Union of Road Transport Workers), Imo State Chapter, for forward and reverse logistics.

“We will fulfill all our obligations and we expect the other parties to fulfill their obligations too. We have not received any information to the contrary.”

In readiness for the election, the Imo State Police Command said it would not spare anyone who might want to disrupt the exercise in the state.

The state Police Public Relations Officer, Henry Okoye, said the command had carried out heavy deployments across the state following an appraisal of the security situation during the presidential, National, and House Assembly polls conducted earlier in the year.

Speaking on the strike declared by the Nigeria Labour Congress and Trade Union Congress in the state, he noted that the labour unions lacked the constitutional power to halt an election and cautioned the unions’ leaders against intimidating voters.

Okoye said, “(The) Nigerian Labour Congress can never stop the election from being held in Imo State. They don’t have the constitutional power to stop elections from being held in Imo State. The election will be held successfully in Imo State. The election will be conducted successfully in Imo State.

“We have done an appraisal of the presidential and National House Assembly elections conducted this year which was relatively peaceful. And now we have come up with enhanced security measures to ensure that the election this time around is going to be conducted free, fair, transparent, and will be acceptable at the end of the day.

“I don’t need to mention any areas, but what I can say is that we have done our assessment, and we’re fully prepared, we have prepared enough security on the ground to make sure that the election in Imo State is successful.”

Punch Newspaper