Bayelsa , Kogi, Imo Polls: INEC clears air on result procedure
…says IReV does not collate results
By Tunde Opalana
The Independent National Electoral Commission INEC, has said there is no ambiguity in the procedure to be followed in declaring results of votes in the November 11 governorship elections in Bayelsa, Kogi and Imo states.
According to the Commission, extant laws guiding electoral procedures including the Electoral Act 2022 and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999 as amended will be strictly followed.
Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu specifically stated this on Saturday while addressing journalists during the monitoring of the mock accreditation for the coming off- cycle governorship polls in the three states.
Prof. Yakubu said ” the method is as provided by law, electronic accreditation, electronic upload of results on the 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. That’s going to be the procedure and it’s for that reason that I will advise you also for those who are registered on the IREV portal, that in the next two hours or so, they should go to the IREV portal you will see the result of the mock from all the three states, we are uploading, as we have done in previous elections.”
True to his promise, INEC uploaded results of accreditation carried out during the mock exercise on its website.
However, the Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman, Mr. Rotimi Oyeksnmi on Sunday in a statement clarified issues surrounding reports on the chairman’s comment in the media.
He emphasized that there is a difference between uploading and transmission of results.
Oyekanmi sais “I know that some Sub-Editors and even substantive Editors back in the various newsrooms are fixated on the word – “Transmission”. However, it is important for our colleagues to impress it on them that the Commission uploads, not “transmits” polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
“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”.
“In other words, some Nigerians believe that the BVAS is an Electronic Voting Machine and that the IReV receives, collates results, and thereafter determines the outcome of an election!
“Indeed, electronic transmission of election results would also entail electronic collation of those results to determine the outcome of the election. But 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. It merely displays polling unit results, just as a scoreboard displays the goals scored during a football match in a stadium.”
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According to the Chief Press Secretary, the primary purpose why INEC invented IReV 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.
“Recall that we began by introducing the large format PRS — “People’s Result Sheet” (Form EC60E), which was pasted at all Polling Units after the close of poll during the 2017 Anambra Governorhip Election. Subsequently, we extended the PRS to the World Wide Web,” he added.
