The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had said its laws did not make it compulsory for it to transmit the 2023 presidential election results electronically.
Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, former INEC Director of Voter Education/Publicity has said that election results should first be transmitted to the collation system before uploading to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
Oluwole who made this known when he was featured in a programme on Channel Television, noted that electronic collation of election results was not compulsory.
He said; "Results should be transmitted to the collation system before uploading to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
"Collation system is where you should transmit the result to first and then the IReV.
"Collation system forms the backend of IReV, it is like a mirror, it should replicate that. But first of all, take it to the collation system and then IReV that is what the constitution says.”
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had said its laws did not make it compulsory for it to transmit the 2023 presidential election results electronically.
The electoral body made its position known on Tuesday while responding to a petition filed before the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) in Abuja by the Action Peoples Party’s (APP) challenging the outcome of the 2023 presidential election.
The APP in its petition, had challenge the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu’s victory in the February 25 election, on the grounds that the electoral umpire failed to transmit results electronically, which violated the law.
But INEC, through one of its lawyers, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), insisted that the presidential elections in 2023 was free and fair, insisting that the Electoral Act does not require the electronic transmission of results.
"The election was free, fair, credible and in compliance with the constitution and the Electoral Act, 2022 and other relevant laws and guidelines, INEC stated in one of the documents before the tribunal.
“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.”