Few months after total real-time election results failed to happen in the presidential election of 2023, the electoral body is giving it a try again.
Sadly, the February 25 elections may have lowered the trust that many Nigerians have on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
This is because the February 25 elections ended with many Nigerians feeling betrayed. INEC failed to keep to its promise of uploading results.
There was a long list of what may have angered voters on that day and top on that list was the commission’s failure to transmit results in real time.
You see, prior to that election, INEC had bragged about how prepared it was for the election.
INEC had promised to transmit results in real-time on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV), however, on election day, numerous excuses crawled out.
It was either the BVAS could not connect to the server, or the INEC staff didn’t have the password.
You needed to see the shock and disappointment on people’s faces.
Another Promise
Now, the off-cycle elections are near and again INEC has promised to upload polling unit results in real-time on the Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
The big question is, would voters in Kogi, Bayelsa, or Imo State believe this promise?
It was the Acting Director of Voter Education and Publicity of the Commission, Mary Nkem, who made the promise on behalf of the Chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu.
Nkem was on Channels Television’s People’s Townhall on Election Security in Abuja on Sunday night.
2023 Election Glitches
Nkem said all the glitches experienced during the 2023 general elections had been addressed, stating that the Commission is ready to conduct free, fair and credible off-cycle elections.
She said INEC had put a lot of plans in place to guarantee early deployment of sensitive materials to polling units including ad hoc officers camping near polling units a day before the exercise.
She said: “Rather than people moving from the local government headquarters to the various polling units, they are moved closer to the PUs (polling units) where they are going to work.
“So, I can assure you that God willing, we will deploy early”.
Movement Of Materials
The INEF spokesperson revealed that sensitive materials will be moved from the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) vaults to Kogi, Bayelsa and Imo states by Monday.
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The official also said the Commission conducted mock accreditation last month in all three states to confirm the functionality of the BVAS, accredit voters as well and upload polling unit results to the IReV and these were optimally carried out.
Nkem was asked whether the challenges with the IReV in the 2023 presidential election earlier in February had been identified and resolved to go into the three off-cycle governorship polls.
Monitoring Collations
She said: “Sure, we had a post-election review and all of these things that went wrong were identified.
“Well, there was a glitch, technology, and it will interest you that if you go to the IReV now, all of those results are on the IReV.
“Just that they could not be uploaded real-time but they were uploaded later on and we can assure Nigerians, because even the mock that we conducted, within two hours, all the results were on the IReV,” she added.
Nkem encouraged all political parties with candidates in the forthcoming polls to have records of results of all the polling units to monitor collation.
