The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has brushed aside demands by some political parties to pause the ongoing collation and declaration of the results of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections.

Development Diaries reports that five political parties are protesting the failure of the commission to ask its officials to upload the results to the INEC portal from the polling units.

The parties are Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party (LP), Action Alliance (AA), African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Social Democratic Party (SDP).

They complained about widespread discrepancies in the results of the elections and asked INEC to halt the proceedings at the National Collation Centre in Abuja and address their complaints.

Millions of Nigerians had trooped out to elect the successor to President Muhammadu Buhari and federal lawmakers last Saturday.

INEC had promised to start uploading results from polling units to the portal as soon as counting ended.

However, almost 24 hours after voting ended, scanty results of the polls had been uploaded, raising concerns over election transparency.

In fact, results are now being transmitted manually – a system Nigerians thought had been relegated to the past.

Generally, logistics challenges, overvoting, voter inducement, delay in uploading results from polling units to IReV, violence amongst others were challenges identified during the polls.

The INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, had written to Nigerians ahead of the 2023 general election reiterating the commission’s commitment to free, fair and credible polls.

Specifically, he promised that there was no going back on the use of bimodal voter registration system (BVAS) for the 2023 elections.

BVAS is a device introduced by INEC that allows for the accreditation of voters through biometrics capturing, uploading of polling results and other functions.

The use of BVAS for elections in Nigeria is stipulated in the Electoral Act of 2022 and INEC had promised to enforce the electoral law.

Development Diaries believes that it is not too late for INEC to respect the law by ensuring strict adherence to the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act as they relate to electronic transmission of election results.

We ask that INEC publishes the comprehensive report of BVAS across the country alongside the results of the presidential elections.

As the world watches, we call on the INEC chairman to fulfil his promise to Nigerians.