Laolu Akande, a former spokesperson for ex-Vice President Yemi Osinbajo, has said the failure of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to e-transmit results of the last general elections has ‘shattered’ the trust of Nigerians in the body.
While speaking on Channels TV’s Politics Today on Friday, Akande stated that despite assurances from the commission to transmit results electronically, it failed to upload election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV).
His words: “It is important to establish something we cannot basically run away from. INEC came out of this election as a damaged good. There is no doubt about that. INEC itself set up a standard, determined the guidelines. INEC committed to the people of Nigeria that this is how we are going to declare the result of the election.
“In fact, the Chairman of INEC went abroad and said, ‘What we are going to do is that this results, when we get it, we would put it on our IReV in real-time’.”
Akande further stated that, while INEC has not broken the law in accordance with the judgment delivered by the Presidential Election Petition Court, PEPC, Nigerians now have distrust in the body.
He said, “Now guess what? When it was time for INEC to fulfill its own guidelines—for certain reasons, we could talk about that—INEC failed to do what it said it would do. Now it is right if you look at the law, and I think the judges have also affirmed that INEC has not really broken the law. But INEC has broken the trust of the Nigerian people.
“it’s a problem for political legitimacy for people that came out of that system.”
It was reported that the five-member panel, headed by Justice Haruna Tsammani, on Wednesday ruled that the Electoral Act 2022 does not contain a mandatory provision for the electronic transmission of election results.
