INEC’s Dramatic U-turn on Electronic  Transmission of Election Results

After failing to transmit the 2023 presidential election results in real-time despite its repeated assurances that it would apply its technological innovations in the conduct of the elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission has declared that electronic transmission of the results was not mandatory. Ejiofor Alike reports that INEC’s sudden U-turn may erode whatever is left of its credibility and engender an unprecedented voter apathy in future elections

A major achievement of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) before the 2023 general election was its capacity to secure the confidence of Nigerians and the international community in its ability and readiness to conduct credible elections.

With its two major technological innovations – the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the Results Viewing Portal (IReV) – which it consistently vowed to deploy during the elections to end the era of election rigging in Nigeria, the commission was able to secure the confidence of the various political parties and their candidates, the media, civil society organisations (CSOs), security agencies and the international community.

Before the signing of the Electoral Act 2022, INEC had consistently told Nigerians that the use of its technology to conduct the 2023 elections would be predicated on the signing of the bill.

It was a sigh of relief for various stakeholders when President Muhammadu Buhari signed the bill, which empowered the commission to use its technological innovations in the conduct of the elections.

To allay the fears expressed in some quarters that it planned to jettison BVAS and IReV during the elections to favour the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), INEC spent literally one year preceding the elections in confidence-building and sensitising the various stakeholders on its determination not to renege on his avowed commitment.

Just on February 7, 2023, few weeks to the presidential election, the Chairman of INEC, Prof Mahmood Yakubu stated in the commission’s official media handle, @inecnigeria, that “let me once again reassure Nigerians that there is no going back on deployment of BVAS for voter accreditation.

“There is no going back on the transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) in real-time on Election Day.”

Yakubu further pledged that “the commission will also upload Polling Unit level results (Form EC8A) and the accreditation data to the INEC Result Viewing Portal. This is also a mandatory provision of sections 50,60, and 64 of the Electoral Act 2022.”

But the rude shock came when the commission disappointed Nigerians in the February 25 elections when it failed to fulfill its promises on the use of these technologies.

In a weak attempt to justify what the opposition parties believed was a premeditated strategy to compromise the results of the elections, the Minister of Communication and Digital Economy of Nigeria, Isa Ali Pantami had told Nigerians that the INEC server recorded more than 12 million attacks on February 25.

Even after the INEC had explained to Nigerians that the challenges it faced on February 25 were not due to intrusion or sabotage of its systems, insisting that the IReV was well-secured, the Minister of Information and Culture, Lai Mohammed also attempted unsuccessfully to sell this tissue of lies to his international audience.

The minister told the international media in Washington DC recently that INEC delayed the uploading of the results to its portal due to suspected cyber-attack during the presidential poll.

 “What happened on the 25th of February was that INEC observed that the results of the presidential elections were not being viewed. INEC, suspecting a cyber-attack, withheld the uploading of the results to preserve the integrity of the data,” the minister reportedly said.

But when the implications of his false claim dawned on him a few hours later, the minister who is notorious for abusing a section of the media and social media users, denied making the claim.

In his characteristic style of shutting down the voices of dissent, Mohammed described the report as “irresponsible and reckless journalism.”

“What I said was that, during the election, there was a technical glitch and as a result of this and for INEC to protect the data, it suspended uploading of the results,” Mohammed recanted.

INEC had in its face-saving effort blamed technical hitches with its IReV for its failure. It admitted that IReV was slow and unsteady.

INEC Chairman, Yakubu also admitted that the challenges of logistics, election technology, the behaviour of some election personnel, among others, added to the extremely challenging environment in the elections.

Yakubu explained that the commission was determined to ensure that the glitches experienced with uploading results were rectified before the governorship elections.

But Nigerians wondered why technical glitches did not affect the uploading of the results of the National Assembly elections held simultaneously with the presidential poll.

However, with the filing of petitions by aggrieved political parties and their candidates at the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC), the commission has suddenly made a strange U-turn, declaring that the electronic transmission of the results was not mandatory.

This claim, even if it passes the test of scrutiny at the court, may adversely erode whatever is left of the commission’s credibility and the confidence of Nigerians in the country’s electoral system.

The commission in its first legal response to accusations that it failed to follow the Electoral Act 2022 and also failed to abide by its own guidelines, claimed that it was not mandatory for it to upload the results electronically, after it had made strong commitments to Nigerians and the international community.

INEC’s position was in response to a petition by the Action Peoples Party (APP) before the PEPC in Abuja.

APP is challenging the victory of the President-elect, Bola Tinubu.

But in a reply to the APP’s suit, INEC reportedly cited paragraphs 50 to 55 of the regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 presidential election.

“There was no collation system of the 3rd respondent (INEC) to which polling unit results were required to be transmitted by the presiding officers…the prescribed mode of collation was manual collation of the various forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8C, EC8D and EC8E in the presidential election,” the electoral umpire stated in its defence.

INEC further admitted that the presidential results were not immediately uploaded because its IReV became erratic at the point of collation.

Curiously, INEC admitted that the result sheets were being successfully uploaded through the e-transmission system to the IRev portal in respect of the National Assembly elections.

By declaring that electronic transmission of the results was not mandatory after all its promises and assurances, INEC may have unwittingly told Nigerians that it was not obligated to abide by its own words or fulfill its promises.

Without prejudice to the matter before the court, the commission has simply told Nigerians not to take its promises and statements seriously in future elections because its words are not its bonds.

INEC may have unwittingly sounded its own death knell as many Nigerians may no longer waste their time to register as voters or cast their votes in future elections.