Over a day after the presidential and national assembly elections were called off, there is a palpable sense of unease throughout the nation as Nigerians wait for the results.

But despite INEC’s explanation that the difficulties the commission was having with the transmission of results were not the result of system sabotage, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), assured the Nigerian people that the process of collation and announcement would be transparent.

The presidential and national assembly elections were rescheduled, but in the meantime, as more and more results from the presidential and legislative elections began to come in, INEC conducted elections in the remaining 141 polling units in Yenagoa, Bayelsa State.

The Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC), meanwhile, has commented on the controversies surrounding the presidential and national assembly elections held over the weekend in some states, warning the INEC and security agencies against collaborating to thwart the will of the people.

In one of his briefings yesterday, Yakubu allayed concerns about manipulation by stating that everything related to the results’ collation and announcement would take place in the open at the International Conference Centre, Abuja. Festus Okoye, the Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee and National Commissioner of INEC, stated in a statement that the Commission was aware of issues with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

The commission stressed that it regretted the setback, especially given the importance of IReV in its results management process, noting that it has been relatively slow and unsteady in contrast to the off-season elections where the portal was used. 

“The IReV scaling up issues from a platform for managing off-season state elections to one for managing the national general election are the sole cause of the issue. In these circumstances, bugs do occasionally appear and need to be fixed. Therefore, the Commission wants to reassure Nigerians that the issues are not the result of any hacking or system sabotage, and that the IReV is still well-secured, he said.

He added that IReV users would have noticed improvements since last night while reassuring them that the technical team was diligently working to resolve all outstanding issues.

“We also wish to assure Nigerians that the results from the Polling Units, copies of which were issued to political parties, are secure on both the BVAS and the IReV portal,” he said. These results cannot be tampered with, and Section 65 of the Electoral Act of 2022 will be followed to investigate any discrepancy between them and the physical results used in collation.

While the commission said it fully understood the public’s concerns about the situation and welcomed the various suggestions it had received from worried Nigerians, it emphasized that it was important to refrain from making statements or taking actions that could inflame the political climate at this time or foster a negative perception of the Commission.

Therefore, the commission took full responsibility for the issues and expressed regret over any harm they may have done to the candidates, political parties, and electorate.

In the meantime, the Nigeria Labour Congress (NLC) commented on the scandals surrounding the presidential and National Assembly elections in some states and forbade INEC and the security services from working together to thwart the will of the people.

NLC urged President Muhammadu Buhari to summon INEC’s leadership right away in response to allegations that they colluded to rig the election and incite violence. In response to Lagos State’s Resident Electoral Officer’s refusal to send the BVAS reports for the presidential election to the official INEC Servers, the labor movement requested INEC to reject the election results from Lagos State in a statement by NLC President Comrade Joe Ajaero.

NLC argued that the commission ought to ensure that those responsible are brought to justice in addition to rejecting the outcome.

We want INEC to make sure that any cooked results from any REC are not only rejected but also that offenders are made to bear the full force of the law because this is totally unacceptable.

INEC needs to understand that delaying the results’ expected upload to its server results in an avoidable crisis of confidence and jeopardizes the entire process. We insist that the real results as recorded by the BVAS be uploaded without fail and continue to express our deep concerns regarding the apparent manipulation of results in Lagos and Rivers States, according to Labor.

The NLC warned INEC and the Security agencies of the risks of undermining the sovereign will in a statement titled, “Is INEC subverting Nigeria? We issue a warning to INEC and others not to permit a national security crisis to develop out of this election. This is avoidable, and the only way we can ensure national peace is by letting the sovereign will prevail. 

The idea that everything will proceed as usual should be discounted because the tension that has existed since the vote was cast should be a clear indication to anyone considering stealing the vote, it said.

According to NLC, the commission must be seen as being ethical and following the rules set forth by the law.