Mahmood Yakubu, INEC Chairman
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has finally admitted its failure to upload the results of Saturday’s presidential and national assembly election to the INEC Election Result Viewer (IReV) on time and had expressed its regret for this shortcoming.
INEC had to make this plea as election results for many polling units did not make it to the portal more than 18 hours after the election, thereby fueling allegations that the poll may have been rigged.
However, the commission blamed server downtime for the inability of its officials to upload the results to the portal on time.
The IReV portal was created by INEC to provide real-time transmission of election results from polling units to the central collation centre so as to ensure transparency and boost confidence in the country’s electoral process.
Following criticism that trailed this shortcoming, INEC’s spokesman, Festus Okoye, explained that the problem resulted from the commission’s migration of the IReV portal from the “off-season” election management portal to the one used “for managing nationwide general elections”
Okoye added that the commission regrets the development.
The statement reads: “The Commission is aware of challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). Unlike in off-season elections where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady. The Commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.
“The problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, State elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections. It is indeed not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations.
“Consequently, the Commission wishes to assure Nigerians that the challenges are not due to any intrusion or sabotage of our systems, and that the IReV remains well-secured.
“Our technical team is working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, and users of the IReV would have noticed improvements since last night.
“We also wish to assure Nigerians that results from the Polling Units, copies of which were issued to political parties, are safe on both the BVAS and the IReV portal. These results cannot be tampered with and any discrepancy between them and the physical results used in collation will be thoroughly investigated and remediated, in line with Section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022.
“While we fully appreciate the concerns of the public on this situation and welcome various suggestions that we have received from concerned Nigerians, it is important to avoid statements and actions that can heat up the polity at this time or promote disaffection towards the Commission.
“We take full responsibility for the problems and regret the distress that they have caused the candidates, political parties and the electorate.”
