By Ibrahim Danladi

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has asserted that the glitch encountered during the upload of results for the February 25 presidential election should not overshadow the overall conduct of the nationwide polls.

In response to the final report submitted by the European Union Election Observation Mission on the 2023 general elections, Festus Okoye, INEC National Commissioner, urged Nigerians not to pass judgment on the electoral commission solely based on the challenge faced during the upload of the presidential election results.

“It is unfair to judge the entire performance of the commission on the basis of a glitch in the result upload for the presidential election,” Okoye stated.

He emphasized that political parties have been granted legal authority to be present and informed about the activities at polling units.

“Almost all political parties nominated and accredited over 170,000 polling agents. This means they had primary evidence of the results from the polling units,” Okoye explained.

He further clarified that the polling unit results, along with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine, are what ultimately reach the collation center. Thus, political parties should not rely solely on result uploads for evidence to support their legal cases.

Okoye highlighted the positive reception of the BVAS by Nigerians, emphasizing that no one has criticized its functionality with regard to voter accreditation.

The BVAS machine, deployed across more than 176,000 polling units, was used by INEC for voter accreditation during the 2023 general elections. It was designed to promptly upload photographic copies of result sheets to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal after their documentation at the polling units.