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The announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to collate results of the 2023 general elections manually has been termed a rigging plot by a frontline presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar.
INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, said in an interview with Punch Newspaper that the commission would transmit results from polling units to its result-viewing portal, IReV, as witnessed in recent elections, but that the Electoral Act was clear on how collation should be done, which is manual.
Citing several sections of the Constitution and Electoral Act, Okoye said: “The implication of this is that the collation process of results is still essentially manual, but the collation officer must collate subject to his verification and confirmation that the number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units.”
But Atiku the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), speaking through his spokesman, Daniel Bwala, said anything short of a credible election would be rejected.
In a tweet, he said:”The whole world is looking to Nigeria to deliver a free, fair and transparent election in 2023 consistent with the electoral law as amended. Anything short of that will be unacceptable”
He added: “How can INEC apply the same electronic upload of results onto the viewing portal in ANAMBRA, EDO, EKITI, and OSUN which all worked perfectly fined, suddenly try to place reliance more on manual collation over the electronic uploads? What in law we call ‘consulting notice.’”
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