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Fri, Mar

2023: Electronic Transmission Of Result Have Come To Stay – INEC

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The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has disclosed that results for the 2023 general election shall all be transmitted electronically to the INEC server. There has been agitation that INEC should strengthen the electoral processes that will give Nigerian confidence that their vote counts whenever there is an election in the country. Against this backdrop, the electoral umpire strived after a series of efforts to have finally pushed for the amendment of the Electoral Act, 2022 that was assented to by President Buhari on 25th February 2022, which will guarantee all votes count in form of electronic transmission of result to the INEC server.


Accordingly, Section 52(2) of the Act says: “Subject to Section 63 of this bill, voting at an election and transmission of results under this bill shall be in accordance with the procedure determined by the commission (INEC), which may include electronic voting.” 

Speaking to newsmen in Abuja yesterday on the election debate, the INEC boss assured Nigerians that henceforth, all election results shall be transmitted electronically to the INEC server. 

Assuring the newsmen that transmission of results electronically to INEC from the polling Units, PUs are now a permanent future of the electoral umpire. 

In his statement, “Yes, it is going to be permanent in all elections conducted by the commission going forward. But I wish to draw your attention to the fact that we did not start the electronic transmission, at least, from the polling units to the IReV Portal, in Anambra or FCT elections. 

Yakubu noted that “It was actually on August 2020 that we deployed that for the Nasarawa Central State Constituency by-election, the first election conducted under COVID-19. So, if you look at the IReV Portal, you could see all the results from 2020 to the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections and all the other by-elections we conducted,” 

What was learned from Kenyan Election? 

Speaking on lessons learned from the just-concluded Kenyan presidential election, Yakubu said that the INEC had received a letter from the Independent Electoral and Boundaries Commission (IEBC) of Kenya that it wanted to deploy the Kenya Integration Election Management System (KIEMS) and that it was going to transmit polling unit level results to the collation center. KIEMS is the equivalent of Nigeria’s Bi-Modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS). 

He revealed that, unlike our country, election results used to be collated manually but assuring this has to change. 

Although, he explained that Nigeria’s BIVAS is a step ahead of Kenya’s system because, in Nigeria, the collations have to pass through several stages from the polling units to the ward level, to the local governments and the states before reaching the national portal for the presidential election. 

He added the system allows all political party agents to be part of those who observe the whole process till the end. 

The INEC boss acknowledges that Nigeria learned something from Kenyan in 2007 but Kanya is also learning something from Nigeria in the 2019 and the 203 general elections. Daily trust.

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