Alake said the Electoral Act 2022 does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the electronic transmission of results.
By Jeffrey Agbo
The APC’s Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is not mandated by law to transmit electoral results electronically from polling units.
The council’s Special Adviser on Media and Communications, Dele Alake, stated this at a news conference in Abuja on Friday in reaction to recent remarks made by opposition parties.
Alake said the transmission of election results was at the discretion of INEC and that the Electoral Act 2022 does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the electronic transmission of results.
“The complaint over electronic transmission of election results is not supported by law.
“Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 relied upon by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) to challenge the result of the Feb. 25 presidential election has nothing to do with transmission of election results.
“Section 60, sub-section 2 of the Act deals with transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.”
He added that what was important was the counting of votes in the presence of party agents and the hearing of voters.
Alake said it was absurd to insinuate that time variation in uploading results would cause a change in the figures.
“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in any way change the results that have been announced,’’ Alake stressed.
He added that the news conference was to respond to both the candidates of the PDP, Atiku Abubakar and that of the Labour Party, Peter Obi, following their recent statements as regards the election results.
He described the efforts by the PDP, the LP and the NNPP to approach the court over the election results as a welcome development.
“We must thank them for finally opting for the rule of law as against the initial belligerent posture as they continue their baseless journey of chasing after a mirage.
“Those that lay claim to democratic credentials are expected to be conscious of those inimitable minimum requirements of law and order, even in the face of perceived injustice.
“The initial knee-jerk and hothead call for anarchy by their proxies was ill-advised and would in no way serve any noble cause. It is good to know that reason has prevailed.
“We welcome the decision by the PDP, the LP and also the NNPP candidates to test their claims as ridiculous as they are in the court of law as provided for by the Constitution,’’ Alake said.
He said that listening to Atiku and Obi at their different news conferences left the APC confounded.
“As we all can see, these two otherwise experienced politicians are pinpointing lack of adherence to the guidelines as basis for discrediting the votes lawfully cast by Nigerians.
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“We shall examine the so-called process that was purportedly breached by the electoral body and how it, in their wild imagination, undermined the credibility of the election.
“The claim that INEC did not use the BVAS is false; those who voted across Nigeria, including Atiku and Obi, were accredited by BVAS,’’ Alake said.
He added that except for bad losers, stakeholders should rather be celebrating the tremendous improvement the use of BVAS had brought to the electoral process instead of discrediting the election.
He said that the 2023 presidential election was a watershed as it produced unprecedented outcomes and defied conventions.
According to him, the deployment and use of BVAS is the only reason the elections produced strange outcomes and upsets in many cases.
“The loss of Katsina and Lagos states to the PDP and the LP respectively were contrary to expectations.
“BVAS brought the intended credibility to voters’ accreditation such that many governors and well-established politicians lost elections in what should be safe bet areas.
“The era of ghost-voting and stuffing of ballot boxes is gone. As the experience in the last governorship election in Osun has shown.
“Over-voting would automatically lead to outright cancellation of the results of the polling units based on the provision of the new Electoral Act,’’ he stressed.
Alake said the same PDP trying to pull the wool across the face of Nigerians was the culprit in the Osun governorship election.
He added that contrary to the false claims of Atiku and Obi, the reasons for losing the elections were foretold.
“Besides the delusional expectations created during the campaigns to hoodwink the public, most PDP leaders knew their party had been decimated by Obi.
“The Southeast and South-South that were traditional strongholds of the PDP constituted the core support base for the LP.
“The PDP went into the election without its limbs and lied to itself that it could win the race.
“It is worthy of note that Atiku also accepted this fact during his press conference when he lamented that his party’s votes in the Southeast and South-South were carted away by the LP,’’ Alake noted.
