Electronic collation of election results not mandatory, INEC replies petition

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said electronic collation of election results is not mandatory.

INEC said this response to a petition by the Action Peoples Party (APP) before the Presidential Election Petitions Court (PEPC) in Abuja.

The APP is challenging the result of the 2023 presidential election which declared the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, as the winner on the grounds of alleged substantial non-compliance with the electoral laws of Nigeria, as well as breach of INEC guidelines.

INEC through one of its lawyers, Abubakar Mahmoud (SAN), a former President of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), insisted that it conducted free and fair polls on February 25.

“The election was free, fair, credible and in compliance with the constitution and the Electoral Act, 2022 and other relevant laws and guidelines,” Mahmoud said.

The APP had alleged that INEC breached its own laws and guidelines.

However, INEC dismissed the party’s argument that results collation were to be done electronically, citing paragraphs 50 to 55 of the regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 presidential election.

“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,” the electoral umpire stated in its defence.”

It also dismissed the allegation that its officials doctored results to favour a particular political party’s candidate or that there was over-voting.

It further stated that its online result viewing portal became erratic at the point of collation and members of its Information and Communications Technology (ICT) team were called in to rectify the problem, the reason the presidential results were not immediately uploaded.

“The 3rd respondent’s (INEC) technical team took every step to restore the application to functionality… five application/patches updates were created and deployed immediately with the aim of fixing the error,” INEC said in its court filing.

INEC said it will tender in evidence the report of its ICT department during the tribunal hearing with two witnesses who are INEC officials for further clarity.

The dates for the hearing of the five petitions so far received from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), the Labour Party (LP), the APP, Action Alliance (AA) and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) is yet to be fixed by the PEPC.

Meanwhile, the APC on Monday, prayed the PEPC to dismiss the petition filed by the LP and its Presidential Candidate, Mr Peter Obi, against the emergence of Tinubu as president-elect in the Feb. 25 election.

The party asked the tribunal to dismiss the petition with substantial cost on the grounds that it lacked merit and was frivolous.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Obi, the 1st petitioner, and LP, the 2nd petitioner, had sued the INEC, Tinubu, Sen. Kashim Shettima and APC as 1st to 4th respondents respectively.

The petitioners are seeking the nullification of the election victory of Tinubu and Shettima in the Feb 25 presidential poll.

Abubakar and the PDP are also challenging the outcome of the presidential poll.