Protesters Demand Electronic Transmission of Results

Protesters Tuesday stormed the streets leading to the International Conference Centre, Abuja, to demand the electronic transmission of results from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Development Diaries reports that the protesters expressed dissatisfaction over the refusal of INEC to transmit results electronically.

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.

The commission had promised to start uploading results from polling units to the portal as soon as counting ended. But almost 24 hours after voting ended, scanty results of the polls had been uploaded, raising concerns over election transparency.

Generally, logistics challenges, overvoting, voter inducement, delay in uploading results from polling units to IReV, and violence were observed 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.

‘INEC assured us that it would be a transparent process. They assured us of a transparent process and that the BVAS would be used, which is supposed to be an electronic process’, ThisDay quoted a protester, Lillian Kozau, as saying.

‘Why will a result be deleted from a platform after it has been uploaded? What are they up to? All we asked for was a transparent process. We just wanted whoever we voted for to emerge as the president of this country. We just wanted hope; we just wanted things to work. We are not asking for too much’.

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 calls on the commission to respect the law by ensuring strict adherence to the provisions of the Act.

We had earlier called on INEC to also publish the comprehensive report of BVAS across the country alongside the results of the presidential elections.

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