By Ola ‘Kiya, Reporting
BARELY six hours after the completion of voting exercise in some polling units with results already trickling in across the country as of 4:00p.m, no result has been uploaded on INEC’s election results portal as of the time of filing this report.
Stonix News checks as of 10:34p.m confirmed that result of no polling unit has been uploaded out of 176,846 polling units, nationwide.
INEC’s sing-song has always been that upon completion of votes counting, election results would be uploaded by the Presiding Officer at the polling unit as it was done at the last governorship elections at Ekiti and Osun states.
INEC’s Chairman, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, while speaking at a meeting with leaders of foreign election observers, on Wednesday, had, however, explained that raw election figures would not be transmitted, electronically.
He had directed that the presiding officers would be required to use the BVAS to capture the election results on the results sheet from each polling unit, and upload them on INEC Result Viewing Portal for Nigerians to see.
He added that the decision was taken to avoid hacking as raw figures were more susceptible to hacking.
“The BVAS confirms that the cards issued by the commission and presented by the voter is genuine and the voter is authenticated using the fingerprint and where it failed, the facial. Where both fail, the voter can’t vote. That is a matter of law.
“After the process is completed at the polling unit, the image of the polling unit result will be taken by the BVAS and uploaded into what we call the INEC Result Viewing Portal where citizens can see polling unit level results as the processes are completed at polling unit level,” he said.
Meanwhile, the National Chairman of the Labour Party (LP), Mr Julius Abure has raised the alarm over the impunity that is presently happening across the entire Lagos State where the results of the presidential elections collated in various polling units in the state are not being uploaded to the Central Server.
According to Julius Abure, the officials of INEC, in alleged connivance with the security agencies, are claiming that the BVAS have suddenly developed fault and therefore cannot function.
The chairman said that information from the party’s field men has it that in places like Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere, and Ibeju Lekki, amongst others where results show that Labour Party won convincingly, the INEC officials claimed that the BVAS suddenly developed fault when it concerned uploading results of the presidential election.
According to him, “Information reaching me has it that in Lagos, they have refused to upload the results for the presidential election, they have uploaded that of the Senate and House of Representatives but for the presidential, they have refused. And they are using the police to drive our agents and supporters out of the place. And they said that they have firm instruction from INEC headquarters not to upload.
“For example, in Kosofe, they put the collation centre in a Local Government Area Headquarters. The place is suorounded by APC and people who are afraid of their life.
“They are not uploading, they said that they have been giving instruction to insist that the BVAS is faulty. And most of the places we won, but they have refused to upload.
“As I speak, APC officials are in Yaba office of INEC negotiating with the officials. What I have said now is happening in Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere, we have this situation all over. In Ibeju Lekki, our local government chairman who attempted to stop them was arrested by the police.”
Abure said that similar situation is playing out across the collation centres in Delta state.
He however, called on INEC to ensure that only genuine and verifiable results generated from the various polling units should be uploaded.
He also called on the police to help the democracy work and resist the lure by the politicians to mar the gains of democracy by refusing to be used to deny Nigerians their choice of leaders.
What's your reaction?
