The spokesperson for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye, has addressed concerns about the commission’s ability to upload the presidential election results on its Result Viewing Portal (IReV) following the February 25 polls.
Okoye, on Channels Television vehemently denied the allegations that INEC had wasted taxpayers’ money.
He emphasized that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) had been successfully utilized for voter accreditation and result upload during the last elections.
While INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, previously acknowledged some glitches during the conduct of the presidential and National Assembly polls, Okoye clarified that the issue of result upload only pertained to the presidential election.
He stated, “It is not true or correct to insinuate even remotely that taxpayers’ money was wasted, and the machine did not work.”
Okoye also urged Nigerians not to judge the overall performance of the commission based on the challenges faced during the upload of the presidential election results.
He emphasized that political parties were empowered by law to have their representatives at polling units, and these representatives obtained primary evidence of the results.
“Almost all the political parties nominated and got accredited at least over 170,000 polling agents,” he stated. “What that means is that they had primary evidence of the results from the polling units.”
He further explained that relying solely on the result upload for evidence in court would not be accurate or fair.
According to Okoye, the collation center receives both the results from the polling units and the BVAS data.
Therefore, political parties should use the combined evidence to support their legal cases.
The INEC spokesperson concluded by emphasizing the importance of acknowledging the successful utilization of the BVAS for voter accreditation.
He noted that the technical glitch during the result upload should not overshadow the nationwide polls’ overall performance.
