At the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal on Friday, June 16, 2023, the counsel representing the All Progressive Congress (APC) claimed that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had announced that the results of the presidential election would not be transmitted live. Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Abiodun Owonikoko stated that the INEC chairman made the announcement a few days before Nigeria’s presidential elections.
The senior lawyer added that the INEC chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, had changed his previous statement and confirmed that live transmission of election results would not take place, as reported by Tribune newspaper.
Owonikoko made this claim while cross examining Labour Party witnesses, Lummie Edevbie and Ijeoma Osamor.
The lawyer representing the APC, further asserted that a Federal High Court ruling had stated that INEC was not obligated to transmit election results electronically.
Claim I:
Few days to the presidential election, a report by Tribune newspaper claimed that INEC had stated it would no longer transmit election results live.
Verification:
CDD Election War Room searched the Tribune Newspaper’s website to confirm the authenticity of the claim made by the APC counsel. The date of publication according to the site was February 23, 2023.
We found a news report by the Tribune newspaper with this headline, “We won’t transmit raw figures of election results, INEC Chairman.”
According to the newspaper report, INEC Chairman informed leaders of International Election Observers that his Commission would not transmit raw figures of election results electronically. The reason for this decision was the susceptibility of electronically transmitted raw figures to hacking.
However, Yakubu mentioned that presiding officers were authorised to use the Bimodal Voters Accreditation (BVAS) machine to capture photos of the election results recorded on the result sheet at each polling unit. These photos would then be uploaded onto the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IRev), allowing concerned Nigerians to view the results.
CDD War Room reviewed the page source to confirm the date of publication. Upon investigation, we discovered that the article was originally published on February 22, 2023, and not February 23, 2023, as displayed on their site. Interestingly, we observed that the page was modified on Friday, June 16, 2023, coinciding with the day the tribunal was in session.
However, we found that the print copy of the paper dated February 23, 2023, had a news story bearing the headline, “We won’t transmit raw figures of election results, INEC Chairman” on its cover page, thus confirming the claim by INEC.
Verdict: TRUE
We can confirm that the news report was published on February 23, 2023, via print. However the date of the online publication is being disputed, and we cannot confirm what or where it was modified in the report.
Claim II:
A Federal High Court ruling had stated that INEC was not obligated to transmit election results electronically.
Verdict: All We know
In January 2023, a Federal High Court in Abuja affirmed that INEC was at liberty to adopt any method of transmitting election results.
The court made the pronouncement while dismissing a suit filed by the Labour Party (LP) seeking to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to adopt an electronic method for transmitting 2023 election results.
Emeka Nwite, the presiding judge, while citing sections 60(5) and 62(2) of the Electoral Act, 2022, stated that the Commission “is at liberty to prescribe or choose the manner in which election results shall be transmitted.”
However, on Friday, March 17, 2023, the Federal High Court in Abuja ordered INEC to transmit election results electronically.
Justice Obiora Egwuatu, in a judgment, also ordered the use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) immediately after the completion of all the polling units voting and results.
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