The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) seems set on a revolutionary
path that could straighten up Nigeria’s sordid and ungainly electoral system. Recently, the electoral body introduced a dedicated public election result viewing portal known as the INEC Result Viewing (IReV). INEC says the innovation will ensure that Polling Unit Result Sheets (EC8A) are lodged in the public domain.
The commission further explained that IReV would enable Nigerians to view polling unit results in real-time as voting ends on election day. INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, stated this in a statement in Abuja. The electoral body is very optimistic that IReV would boost transparentness in election result management and therefore further consolidate public confidence in the electoral process.
Surely, that is just the way to go because cutting-edge technology now rules the world. We are certain that if painstakingly enforced, this innovation will completely enable voters to verify the winner at each polling unit at the conclusion of voting, and effectively check the manipulation of results at the different levels of collation, particularly from the ward tier.
But the question is, will the new portal curb the presentation of dubious results on social media usually displayed as valid unit results? We ask because online results have always generated disorderly outbursts which ultimately leaves the electoral body with no alternative but to be contingent upon results collated at the ward and local government levels, regardless of how they were concocted at the polling units.
Beyond the corroboration of the commission that it now has a server after the controversies and indecisiveness at the 2019 Presidential Election Petition Tribunal, the result viewing portal, from what is generally known of our extant electoral regime, is at best weak in the knees for a number of reasons.
For all its attempts at making the electoral process more transparent and guaranteeing sanctity of votes cast, the IReV seems to set off on a wrong footing that forebodes danger and ultimately failure. In the statement introducing the policy as expressed by Okoye, the commission set out a rather disturbing caveat:
“The Commission wishes to emphasise that this does not constitute electronic collation of results. The collation of election results shall remain as provided for by law, a manual process of completion of relevant result sheets and their upwards collation until the final results are determined.”
In our considered opinion, the above declaration not only whittles down the significance and force of the IReV portal, but it also presents depressing consequences for the scheme in ensuring electoral transparency. It leaves no one in doubt that in the event of any discrepancies in the results uploaded to the portal, and those announced at the polling units, the latter would prevail.
It would then mean that an ambidextrous Presiding Officer at a Polling Unit may upload one result on the IReV server, and declare another totally different at a Polling Unit and transmit same to the ward collation centres for collation. Yet, that is one of many possible instances of disparities that may not be sufficiently remedied by the change because of the viscosity to the manual collation of results.
Usually, the elephant in the room in our election management crises is the manner of collation and transmission of results. The current manual practice gives overwhelming powers to collation officers as whatever results they declare are endorsed by the commission. Therefore, any reform of our electoral system that does not allow for automatic transmission of results at the Polling Units sincerely lends itself to controversy. This is the undoing of the IReV for all the best intentions of the commission.
There is also the sore question of the legality of the IReV portal in the face of an Electoral Act that remains reticent on electronic voting, transmission and collation of results. Perhaps it was for this reason that the commission conceived the rider to the IReV innovation. This lack of legislative force is crucial for election dispute litigation at election petition tribunals for petitioners challenging discrepancies in the result declared on the INEC IReV server, and those collated manually.
Therefore, in the absence of any statutory backing for the IReV policy, it is hard to see how results collated from the server may be used to supplant those manually collated at election tribunals. When one factors how the judiciary has treated the INEC Smart Card Reader (SCR) machines and the data obtained from them at election petition tribunals, the challenge may be better appreciated.
Of course, INEC hinted that the IReV portal would be launched in the Nasarawa Central State Constituency election which held recently, as well as the forthcoming gubernatorial elections in Edo and Ondo States. Though it was reported that the IReV was successfully applied in the Nasarawa by-election, it remains to be seen how it will be utilised in the Edo and Ondo elections, specifically in the event that the results become a subject of litigation.
Indeed, INEC must be commended for this latest move. The IReV intervention provides a clear indication that the electoral body is prepared to bequeath an electoral system free from unwarranted opacity and animosities to Nigerians. And by undertaking this innovation, it suggests that the commission pays close attention to the standpoints of its numerous critics and hence, ready to improve.
Accordingly, we strongly urge the Federal Government and the National Assembly to grant the electoral umpire all the needed support to make a complete transition to a full e-voting a reality in our electoral system.