By Olusegun Hakeem Adebumiti
It is over 40 days that the Nigerian presidential election was held.
A check on the website of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, April 7, 2023, revealed that the electoral body is yet to upload the full results from the election held on Saturday, February 25, 2023.
One of the features of the election was the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), which was a clear departure from the previous presidential elections.
Working with the BVAS is the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal which is to transmit polling unit results realtime to a dedicated website.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, while speaking on several fora during the build up to the election, affirmed that the electoral umpire will deploy the BVAS and also upload the results on IReV.
In a clear departure from its promise, INEC didn’t use the IReV during the presidential election. INEC reason was that the use of IReV is a discretional matter.
It is on record that INEC started uploading the results Three days (February 28) after the presidential election.
INEC, however, deployed the IReV fully when it held the governorship and assembly elections.
A check on INEC website and other social media platforms was not convincing as INEC never gave a reason to the delay in the uploading of the results.
Hakeem Adebumiti is the Editor-in-Chief of Precision Online Newspaper.
Study @ Achievers University
