The Presidential Election Petitions Court on Wednesday ruled that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was at liberty to decide the mode of transmission of election results during the presidential election on February 25, 2023.
The five-man panel led by Justice Haruna Tsammani said according to Sections 52 and 65 of the Electoral Act 2022, INEC was at liberty to prescribe the manner in which election results were transmitted during the poll.
The Tribunal consequently dismissed the petition of the Labour Party (LP) and its presidential candidate, Peter Obi, which argued that the victory of President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) be annulled on the basis of the “failure” of the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV) to upload election results electronically in real time.
Peter Obi and the Labour Party in their petition challenging the victory of Bola Tinubu in the 2023 presidential election argued that the electoral body, INEC failed to transmit election results from the polling units to the collation centres electronically.
The Presidential Election Petition Court has said that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was at liberty to transmit results however it wanted, and not only electronically.
The court on Wednesday said there was nowhere in law where INEC was only required to transmit results by electronic means.
The defendant is at liberty to decide how it would transmit election results, the court held.
It further held that there is no requirement for INEC to electronically transmit the results of the election.
