A former Director of Voter Education and Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, on Tuesday, said electronic collation of results for the 2023 general elections was not compulsory.

Osaze-Uzzi, who spoke on Channels Television’s Politics Today, said the prescribed mode of collating results is manual.

Former Director of Voter Education and Publicity of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, speaks on Channels Television’s Politics Today on April 11, 2023.

Making reference to Section 64 (4) of the Electoral Act, the former INEC spokesman said section empowers the electoral commission to start collating the result upon verification and confirmation of the result.

“The prescribed mode is the manual collation; it didn’t say you should collate electronically. There is nowhere in the law, guidelines you will see electronic (collation of result),” he stated.

“Go back to (Section) 64 (4). Verification and confirmation, that is what is required with the electronically transmitted. But collation is still manual.

“Before you start that process, you must go to the electronic ones and say ‘Are these figures consistent?’ It doesn’t say to start collating from the BVAS, transmitted results. It says to start collation. Before you start collation, look at it and if the figures are the same, you gather all the EC8As together. In that sense, it is a manual process.”

N3bn On Electoral Cases?

Although the presidential and governorship polls have been held nationwide, there are still litigations filed by aggrieved parties who are challenging the outcome of the exercise.

In view of this, there are reports that INEC has budgeted over N3 billion to defend the results of the February 25 presidential and National Assembly elections and the March 18 governorship and state assembly polls.

Commenting on the issue, Osaze-Uzzi said though he read the reports in the media, he cannot officially verify how true it is from INEC.

He said, “I read that on social media, but I don’t know if it is an official statement from the commission. But yes, N3 billion for defending. But not just defending, but to the logistics of moving things around.”

Mumusaphire:
But yakub said results will be sent to main server from polling units.

Christistruth03:
It is up to INEC to decide how best to transmit results

Inec could not transmit results while its servers were having 12million hacking attacks during Elections

alade00:

Who is superior between yakubu and the Constitution,if Buhari told u to commit a crime,does that exonerate u from being punished by law? What do u think the court will follow,yakubu or the Constitution?

mrvitalis:

You don't change the rule in the middle of the game oga ...yes it INEC right to chose method of collection and INEC in their own guidelines said they would use electronic transmission...no boy forced them ...they can't wake up and change the rule

Thedon22:
Obi is just wasting his time!

Christistruth03:


Election Law left the decision to INEC

If INEC servers were under attack the Law was flexible enough for them to decide another safer means of transmission of results

mrvitalis:

The constitution empowers INEC to chose method for collection ...with electronic collection being an option backed by law ... INEC can change collection methods in the middle of elections no

Christistruth03:


Election Law left the decision to INEC

If INEC servers were under attack the Law was flexible enough for them to decide another safer means of transmission of results

alade00:

Good,since Inec has such power to chose between electronic and physical transmission,why are people blaming yakubu then

mrvitalis:

Absolutely no .... you don't do that ...u cancel the election or suspend it simple

alade00:

Good,since Inec has such power to chose between electronic and physical transmission,why are people blaming yakubu then