INEC Is Not Mandated To Collate Or Transmit Results Electronically – Tribunal
The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has dismissed the petition filed by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Atiku Abubakar, challenging the use of manual transmission of election results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the 2023 presidential election.
The tribunal, in a unanimous judgment delivered on Thursday, held that the petitioners failed to prove that INEC violated the Electoral Act by not using electronic transmission of results in some areas. The tribunal said there is no provision in the law that compels INEC to use only electronic methods in collating or transmitting election results.
The tribunal said: “At Nigeria election tribunal today, the justices ruled that There is nowhere in the Electoral Act where the Commission or its agent is mandated to use the only electronic method in collating or transmitting election results.
The commission has the discretion to determine the best method to ensure the credibility and integrity of the electoral process. The petitioners have not shown any evidence that the manual transmission of results affected the outcome of the election or that there was any manipulation or interference with the results transmission process.”
The tribunal also rejected the petitioners’ claim that they had access to INEC’s server, which allegedly showed that they won the election by a margin of over 1.6 million votes. The tribunal said the petitioners failed to establish the existence and authenticity of the server, and that their reliance on a website, Pristinegist.com, which purportedly displayed the server results, was misplaced and unreliable.
The tribunal, therefore, affirmed the declaration of President Muhammadu Buhari as the winner of the 2023 presidential election by INEC. The tribunal awarded a cost of N500,000 each to INEC, Buhari and the All Progressives Congress (APC) as respondents in the petition.
