2023: INEC rules out manipulation of election results

Fashola, Yakassai Seek Credible Polls

“I can confidently say that the days of wanton manipulation of election results in Nigeria are over,” says the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu.

He stated this in Abuja, yesterday, while delivering a keynote address during the release of the report on the Election Result Analysis Dashboard (ERAD) by Youth Initiative for Advocacy, Growth and Advancement (YIAGA) Africa.

The INEC boss said the breakthrough came with the new Electoral Act 2022, which empowered the Commission to adopt electronic means for both accreditation and results management, explaining that the persistence of the commission on electoral issues, particularly in the management of results, is now well-expressed in extant legal framework, administrative procedures and technological innovations it recently introduced.

He said: “Yet, the commission is not resting on its oars, knowing that it must remain several steps ahead of those who seek to undermine the system. The importance of NEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) to transparency of result management is obvious.”

Yakubu called on stakeholders to support the commission to continue working to improve IReV and the entire result management system towards the 2023 general election, which will be far more extensive than what had been done so far.

YIAGA Executive Director, Samson Itodo, disclosed that the ERAD was embedded in the election-day broadcast of Channels Television by tracking results from the polling units based on the commission’s own published results.

“The ERAD was piloted in the governorship election in Ekiti and used in Osun where all the results were downloaded from the iReV portal and 95 per cent and 97 per cent of the polling unit results were analysed and visualised respectively. Millions of Nigerians across the globe followed the Channels TV broadcast, as the ERAD was the only platform that provided real-time visualised data of the election results.”

In the same vein, the Minister of Works and Housing, Babatunde Raji Fashola, and First Republic politician, Tanko Yakasai have stressed the need for Nigerians to vote leaders that would change the country’s narrative.

At TheNiche Annual Lecture in Lagos, on Thursday, where he was the Guest Speaker, Fashola said: “We can win elections without exaggerating our problems. We can do so by offering credible service and well-thought-out solutions. We can win elections without disrobing our country before the global community. We can do so by valourising Nigeria’s possibilities and not by widening her fault lines. Elections and democracy must represent, for us, a feast of ideas and choices that bring out the best of us and the best of our country.”

Theme of the Lecture is ‘2023 Elections and the future of Nigeria’s Democracy.’
Speaking on his topic, ‘Nigeria at the Crossroads: The Challenge of Post-2023’, Yakassai faulted the country’s presidential system of government.

He noted: “I am advocating the adoption of the French presidential system because it is far cheaper to operate and therefore more suitable to our own reality as a developing nation. The operation of American system made administering Nigeria, which is a federal state with diverse nature, more expensive to run and extremely difficult to develop and prosper, unlike many of its sister developing nations.”