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Presidential Election: Manual Upload OF Result Casts Doubt On Polls Integrity – Radio Discussants
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been urged to learn the essential lessons from their failure to conduct a “seamless and transparent” 2023 presidential election as outcry by Nigerians persist over the manual upload of results.
INEC had failed to transmit results electronically from polling units nationwide in the February 25 presidential election despite assuring electorates before the election day. Logistics glitches, violence, intimidation of voters, ballot box-snatching, and insecurity dominated reports from observers and civil society groups.
Speaking during PUBLIC CONSCIENCE, an anti-corruption radio programme produced by the Progressive Impact Organization for Community Development, PRIMORG, Wednesday in Abuja, Data Analyst at Dataphyte Dennis Amata called on INEC to prevent a repeat of logistics and technology glitches, as well as other forms of electoral malpractice ahead of March 11, state elections.
Amata asked the Prof. Mahmood Yakubu-led commission to adhere to its guidelines and ensure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV) works. Noting that the failure of the electoral body to transmit election results from polling units cast doubt on the credibility of the process.
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) was declared the winner of the February 25 presidential poll, sparking outrage and dissatisfaction from some political parties, some local and foreign observers, and some electorates over the manual transmission of results.
He said: “INEC must take a big lesson from what we experienced in the general election, which are issues of logistics, the IREV particularly is the major thing.
“INEC must ensure that things work. You (INEC) made a promise. They must keep to that promise. You have regulations and guidelines. Follow the guideline, ensure that the BVAS work properly, and transmit and scan the result uploaded on the IREV so that people at every level can track the result from each level to the final point.
“INEC must also boost security, especially in Lagos state where we had violence in the election. In Rivers also, there were issues of rigging and all of that. Those are comments we have seen. This must also stop. INEC must play its part. Citizens also have their role when voting, counting and ensuring the result is uploaded.
“Some of the issues we observed cast doubt on the election’s credibility. One of them would be the INEC Result Viewing (IREV) portal, where everybody who has access to the platform is supposed to know the result of polling units down to the state collation center and the national collation center. Unfortunately, we didn’t see that play out where for some reason, several hours after voting, there was no result on the IREV portal, and that for me was a big red flag,” Amata stated.
Similarly, speaking on the integrity and transparency of the 2023 presidential election, Chief Facilitator at Equity Advocate, Ene Ede stressed that “many things went wrong” while blaming INEC and the National Assembly for the failure of the commission to conduct credible elections.
Her words: “We (Civil society organizations) and Nigerians didn’t do enough to hold all stakeholders accountable, media CSOs, faith organizations, we didn’t do enough.
“Let me give you an example. When there was a problem with whether INEC had gotten money, we were not even pushy enough; we were not holding the national assembly accountable enough. The national assembly has to bring so much light to each responsibility of holding all stakeholders accountable; they failed in all their functions, even in the appropriation; we are not sure what transpired or how much money was released because we know what the Electoral Act states, so generally, the preparation was not good enough. The failure rests more squarely on the National Assembly, then INEC.”
Ede hailed Nigerians for their enthusiasm to participate in the 2023 elections, describing ordinary Nigerians as “the heroes and heroines of democracy” in the 2023 presidential election, adding that young people showed patriotism, leadership, and followership qualities which we have never seen before.
She called on CSOs to rise and hold politicians and everybody accountable.
Nigerians who called into the radio programme expressed their dissatisfaction with the election process and faulted INEC for failure to upload election results in real-time.
On her part, PRIMORG’s Program Manager, Adaobi Obiabunmuo, appealed to the Nigerians to remain calm, remain peaceful and eschew any act that can lead to a breakdown of law and order. She urged politicians to seek redress in court and abstain from inciting their followers.
Public Conscience is a syndicated weekly anti-corruption radio program used by PRIMORG to draw government and citizens’ attention to corruption and integrity issues in Nigeria.
The program has the support of the MacArthur Foundation.
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ELECTING A POPE: THE BURDEN OF MAKING CHOICES
By Olubunmi Mayaki
“Habemus papam!” which in the English Language means, “We have a Pope.” was pronounced by Prefect of the Apostolic Signatura, a French Catholic prelate, His Eminence, Cardinal Dominique Mamberti from the iconic loggia of St. Peter’s Basilica at the Vatican City on Thursday 8 May 2025 after white smoke billowed from the chimney of the Sistine Chapel. Those Latin words proclaimed to a tensed global audience the result of the election of a new Supreme Pontiff after the death of Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope Francis) on 21 April 2025 at the age of 88 years.
The Prefect of the Dicastery for Bishops, Cardinal Robert Prevost (Pope Leo XIV) emerged as primus inter pares (first among equals) from the cardinals after undergoing detailed election rituals, which have been the process of selecting the head of the 2000-year-old Catholic Church for centuries.
A papal conclave, the process by which a new Pope is selected, was held consisting of one hundred and thirty-three (133) College of Cardinals, drawn from different parts of the world converged at St. Peter’s Basilica for a public mass before heading to the Sistine Chapel to cast their votes to elect the 267th Pope. During the mass, part of the choir renditions reminded voters to remember their last day when they would stand before God in judgment to render their stewardship on earth, which is to prevent them from rigging the voting process. At the behest of the senior cardinal deacon, voting formalities were read to the electors, which included- oath-taking- “I call as my witness Christ the Lord, who will be my judge, that my vote is given to the one whom I believe should be elected according to God”. Other processes are banning phones, jamming calls, forbidding speaking or contacting any of the candidates, voting rounds, spiritual pauses etc.
Looking at the voting process, one should be curious about how an election to pick a leader for a religious body could be so systematic and attract such global attention. It is a sharp contrast to elections where political leaders are chosen. Even in the so-called advanced democracies, we have seen electoral flaws and a dearth of political leaders. States are finding it difficult to pick genuine statesmen, giving rise to hegemonic leaders. These political imperia ums are emerging and stoking crises in their domain. Fallouts of elections are no longer favourable due to unpopular candidates forced on citizens.
Africa, as a case study, shows that no matter the rules put in place by the continent’s leaders, our election processes have been fraught with rigging, corruption and waste. In most cases, the leaders who set the rules are the violators of the same process. Governments conspire with electoral bodies to truncate election processes at will. Such political brigandage has destroyed the progress of the continent.
Closing this view, I hope that African leaders will take a cue from the Catholic Church’s election process to reinvigorate and rejig the continent’s faltering political process for the good of its people. Better still; political scholars from the continent can study the Catholic model. The common features of elections in most parts of Africa, especially sub-Saharan Africa, are riddled with vote rigging, violence, human rights abuse, repression, barbarism, crises, untold hardship, and sometimes, outright war. This is the bane of Africa’s development.
The burden of making good political choices should ordinarily rest on citizens. However, politicians have hijacked this process for selfish reasons. It has given birth to bad leaders. If we fail to get it right, what we see is what we get. That is the story of the world politics!
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