Off-cycle Elections: Can INEC Redeem Its Image? 

With less than three weeks to the November 11 governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, Nigerians are eager to see the Independent National Electoral Commission compensate them for its perceived poor performance in the last general election, Adedayo Akinwale writes

With about 20 days to the governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, Nigerians are looking forward to seeing the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) redeem its battered image. Even though the electoral umpire is intensifying efforts to ensure that the polls are credible, analysts are just keeping their fingers crossed to see what the commission will come up with.

Dissatisfied with the conduct of the 2023 elections by the commission, political parties and their candidates have since shifted their battle to the courts.

Although the trend of ‘election by court order’ has continued since the return of civil rule in 1999, disputed election outcomes waiting for judicial resolution in this year’s polls are alarming.

For instance, a total of 1,280 political offices were contested in 2023, comprising the office of the presidency, 109 members of the Senate, 360 seats for the Federal House of Representatives, 782 House of Assembly seats across 28 states of the federation and 28 governorship positions.

Out of the total figure, 1,209 petitions are before the judiciary for adjudication, according to the President of the Court of Appeal (PCA), Justice Monica Dongban-Mensem during the ceremony to commence the 2023/2024 legal year in Abuja, representing a whopping 94.453 per cent of the positions where votes were cast.

One of the core grounds the opposition political parties were seeking the annulment of the February 25 presidential election, for instance, was the inability of the commission to “transmit” election results from the polling units to INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal.

The technology glitches suffered by INEC during the presidential election, many believed, cast a dent on the image of the commission, and also eroded the gains recorded and the transparency brought to the election management process through the introduction of technology like Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) by the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led leadership.

While INEC transmitted the result of the National Assembly elections, it did not do the same with the presidential election, an action many Nigerians saw as a calculated attempt to swing the election in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Nevertheless, with less than three weeks to the governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, the electoral body has once again assured the electorate that it would upload election results of the three states on IReV. 

INEC chairman gave the assurance recently in Lokoja, Kogi State where he monitored the mock election held last Saturday and also assessed the level of preparedness for the off-cycle elections.

Yakubu’s clarification became imperative after the Bayelsa State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ofiong Efanga, recently said that the commission would adopt  manual mode of transmission of the governorship election results.

He reiterated that the governorship election in the three states would be conducted in line with the Electoral Act.

Yakubu said: “The method is as provided by law — electronic accreditation, electronic upload of results on the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal, and that is why we are doing this mock. 

“So, please, disregard whatever was reported about what the REC was said to have said in Bayelsa and that is going to be the procedure. And it is for that reason that I will advise you also for those who have registered on the IReV portal, in the next two hours or so, they should go to the IReV portal, they see the result of the mock from all the three states, we are uploading, as we have done in previous elections.”

Interestingly, while the commission has consistently used the word “upload” as against “transmission” of results, many are wondering and even striving to look out for the meaning of the two words. 

While some believe both words are one and the same, the electoral body thought otherwise.

In the words of the Chief Press Secretary to INEC chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, he said though some media organisations are fixated on the word – “Transmission”, it was  important to impress on them that the Commission “uploads”  not “transmits” polling unit results to IReV.

He explained: “Why is it important to distinguish between transmit and upload even when both words appear similar? The reason is that to some Nigerians, “transmission of results” also means “electronic balloting or internet voting”. 

Oyekanmi emphasised that some Nigerians believed that the BVAS is an Electronic Voting Machine, while the IReV receives, collates results, and thereafter determines the outcome of an election.

According to him, electronic transmission of election results would also entail electronic collation of those results to determine the outcome of the election. He explained that this is not what the BVAS and IReV are doing. To be sure, the IReV does not collate election results because it was not designed to do so. The device, he said, merely displays polling unit results, just as a scoreboard displays the goals scored during a football match in a stadium. 

Oyekanmi added that the primary purpose of inventing IReV by INEC is for engendering transparency in its election result management process; to give Nigerians access to polling unit results from all parts of the country on a dedicated portal that could be accessed via the Internet. 

He recalled when the commission introduced the large format People’s Result Sheet (PRS) —Form EC60E, which was pasted at all Polling Units after the close of poll during the 2017 Anambra Governorship election. Subsequently, the commission extended the PRS to the World Wide Web. 

In his intervention, INEC Director of ICT, Mr. Paul Omokore, said IReV is meant to enhance election transparency and not a result collation or transmission system.

Omokore gave the clarification in his presentation titled, ‘The role of BVAS, IReV for Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo Governorship elections’ at a two-day capacity workshop for journalists in Nasarawa State.

He advised journalists and members of the public not to confuse uploading polling units’ results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal with the electronic transmission of results.

Omokore pointed out that BVAS is only used to upload pictures of PUs’ results on form EC8A to IReV, which does not translate to electronic transmission of results.

He said: “Form EC8A is the result that we collated at the PUs. We use BVAS to snap this form and upload the same thing to the IReV portal for public viewing. This is not a collecting system. It does not tally a system. What it does is to snap the EC8A which is the result at the polling unit and upload the same to the public view. That is all.

“I know that 70 per cent of the populace think that the others have collected the figures. No. All it does is snap the EC8A so that the Presiding Officers have collected all the scores of the parties, signed and stamped, and then send this same picture to the IReV for public viewing. That is all. So, it is not a collecting system.”

With the November 11 off-cycle elections fast approaching, all eyes are on the commission to walk the talk and conduct a free, fair, credible and transparent election.

While two of the three states have their governors seeking re-election, the governor of the third state is seeking to install a successor.

All the three governors are determined to have their ways. This desperation is likely to go overboard. This is why many are looking up to the commission not to allow itself to be tainted again.