As the nation gears up for the off-season elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States, Nigerians have expressed doubts over the integrity of the electoral process in the concerned states.

The development followed the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, recently that it plans to manually transmit the results of the forthcoming November 11 Bayelsa governorship election.

DAILY POST quoted the News Agency of Nigeria, NAN, which reported that the State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Mr Obo Effanga, disclosed the commission’s decision in Yenagoa during an interactive meeting with religious leaders and faith-based organisations.

The REC, Effanga, during an interactive meeting also said that INEC was ready to conduct free, fair and credible elections and only voters accredited by BVAS would be allowed to vote.

“Immediately you are given the ballot paper you can start voting.

“We are in the fourth week of collection of PVCs and it will end on Oct. 11. Those who have not collected their cards should go to the INEC office in their local government areas,” he said.

The Commission’s decision has not gone down well with many Nigerians who have also described it as a serious setback.

DAILY POST recalls that before now, the INEC successfully deployed the BVAS and adopted electronic transmission of election results in Ekiti, Osun and Anambra States, which many described as the game changer. The success of application of technology in those elections contributed largely to the passage of the Electoral Act 2023.

Also, before the 2023 general elections, the electoral commission promised and assured Nigerians it would transmit the result electronically. But the promise never came to pass during the presidential election.

Notwithstanding, recent court judgements have shown that the commission is at liberty to prescribe or choose the manner in which election results shall be transmitted.

DAILY POST reported that the Court of Appeal, Lagos division, recently voided a Federal High Court decision that mandated INEC to electronically upload results of the governorship and State of Assembly elections from the polling units directly to the Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

The judgement, delivered by a three-man panel, comprising Justice Abubakar Umar, Justice Olukayode Bada and Justice Onyekachi Otisi, held that the law gave INEC very wide discretionary powers to determine how it transmits or transfers election results.

However, the debate over the electronic transmission of election results is not yet over as it forms part of the petitions by the presidential candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, and Labour Party, LP, Atiku Abubakar and Peter Obi, respectively, which is currently under litigation in the Supreme Court.

According to Atiku and Obi, the INEC contravened provisions of the amended Electoral Act by failing to electronically transmit the results of the election, even after receiving over N355 billion for the conduct of the 2023 presidential poll.

Both candidates equally faulted INEC’s claim that technical glitches were responsible for the inability to upload results on the INEC Result Viewing, IReV, portal.

Meanwhile, the Civil Society Legislative Advocacy Center, CSLAC, has faulted the INEC’s plan to transmit the November 11 Guber election manually.

The group said it was a desperate attempt to allow politicians to manipulate the will of the electorate during the election.

The group further said it believed the integrity and credibility of any election depended on the transparency of the electoral process, including the accurate and timely transmission of results.

While speaking on Arise Television’s News programme on Monday, the Executive Director of CSLAC, Auwal Rafsanjan said the development was a huge concern for anybody who loves the country’s democracy to succeed.

Rafsanjani was of the view that ‘‘whoever is behind this attempt to return us to analogue voting, it’s simply clear they didn’t wish for us to have transparent, free, fair and credible elections.’’

He insisted that the electoral body and the government should rise up to the challenge of concern from Nigerians and even the international community over a few hungry elements who wanted to capture power for their own self-centred interest.

According to him, the Nigerian government spent a huge amount of billions of naira to deploy technology in its electoral process and people have seen the value of using technology in the electoral process.

He said, ‘‘This is a huge concern for anybody who loves this country’s democracy to succeed. The sustainability of democracy in Nigeria lies in free, fair and credible elections.

“And if people in authority are using their powers to undermine free, fair and credible elections in Nigeria, it’s invariably undermining democracy.

“Incidentally, they are the greatest beneficiary of democratic dividend because many Nigerians are still struggling to survive; they have not seen the dividend of democracy because democracy has been hijacked by those who do not wish to have credible elections in this country.

‘‘Therefore, they are doing everything possible to undermine any transparent process that will enable Nigerians to actually have confidence in our electoral system.

“For example, the Nigerian government spent a huge amount of billions of naira to deploy technology in our electoral process. And we have seen the value of using technology in our electoral process.

‘‘Now suddenly, certain people who are desperate to capture power, not through the regular vote but through manipulation and rigging, now start by making desperate efforts that all the billions of naira we have spent to deploy technology are wasted.

‘‘If somebody now is trying to draw us back after a huge success that we have made to ensure that we minimise rigging and double voting, and now want us to come back and do manual election, I think it’s a very clear message that those people didn’t wish Nigerians to have a solid democracy; didn’t wish Nigerians to have a free, fair and credible election; did not wish Nigerians to participate in the electoral process in the country.

‘‘As a result of fraudulent election and electoral violence which are occasioned by these manipulations by some desperate politicians and their allies in other governmental agencies, we are not able to have the needed democracy or the needed stabilisation in the electoral process.

‘‘It took civil society organisations, particularly transition monitoring groups to mobilise Nigerians, to assure them of what INEC has promised the nation that they are going to organise free, fair and credible elections using technology to eliminate multiple voting and ensure electronic transmission of results.

“At the end of the day, we are now seeing what desperate politicians, desperate government officials are doing, wasting public tax payers money to come back to an analogue process which is easy for them to manipulate and hijack the process.

‘‘So I think whoever is behind this attempt to return us to analogue voting, it’s simply clear they didn’t wish for us to have transparent, free, fair and credible elections.

“And that means many Nigerians will be alienated from participating because Nigerians are already disenchanted, they feel that they are not getting what the country promised to do in order to ensure free, fair and credible elections.

‘‘The electoral body and the government must rise up to the challenge of concern from Nigerians and even the international community. We cannot invest this much and come back to analogue because of a few hungry elements who want to capture power for their own self-centred interest.’’

Similarly, a coalition of pro-democracy civil society groups in Nigeria have also rejected the proposal to manually collate results.

The groups noted that electronic transmission of election results is vital to ensuring the authenticity and fairness of elections, calling on the INEC to ensure accurate and timely election results and transparency in the conduct of the November 11 governorship election in Bayelsa State.

They made their position known in a communique jointly signed by the National Secretary of the Campaign for Democracy (CD), Olufemi Lawson and Atani John of the Niger Delta Democratic Vanguard, after a meeting in Abuja.

According to the civil groups, the integrity and credibility of any election depend on the transparency of the electoral process, including the accurate and timely transmission of results.

The coalition said, “Recall that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has on Wednesday stated it plans to transmit results of the November 11 Bayelsa governorship election manually. This was made known through the State’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Mr Obo Effanga.

“Electronic transmission of results is a vital component of ensuring the authenticity and fairness of elections, and its abandonment would undermine the trust of the electorate, Nigerians and the international community in the electoral process.

“The use of technology in the transmission of election results has proven to be a valuable tool in reducing electoral fraud, promoting accountability, and delivering more accurate and timely results to the public. It enhances the transparency of the electoral process and minimises the potential for manipulation or tampering with results at various stages.

“We urge the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to reconsider its proposal and uphold the principles of transparency and accountability in the Bayelsa State Governorship Election.

“We call on INEC to ensure that the electronic transmission of results is maintained and improved upon to guarantee the credibility of the electoral process.

Another civil group, Good Governance Advocacy Group (GGAG), also expressed concern over the development.

GGAG, in a statement signed by its Coordinator, Godwin Ebiware, said it was surprising that the INEC’s Commissioner did not give reasons why the commission would collate results manually.

“The Federal Government spent billions of naira to secure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) but out of a hidden agenda by the political parties in Bayelsa, in connivance with the Independent National Electoral Commission, it has decided to abandon the electronic transmission of the November 11 election results in real-time,” Ebiware said.

Speaking to DAILY POST in an interview concerning the development, the spokesperson for the Forum of State Chairmen of the NNPP, Dada Olayinka Olabode described the INEC’s decision as an attempt to put wool over the eyes of the Nigerians.

Olabode stated there could not be any excuse for INEC under Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, having spent humongous billions of naira to prepare for an aspect of the electoral system that citizens advocated for and the National Assembly legislated on.

He urgedNigerians to advocate that INEC sit up and rescind the decision and transmit the result of the Bayelsa guber election and other staggered elections in Imo and Kogi real time.

He said, ‘‘Every election, everywhere in the world, the most important aspect of it all is the credibility of the process.

“Election starts with the processes, the conducts, the logistics, staff and ultimately the collation of the result of any election.

“There can be no election without the people. It is the people that make that choice of whoever they want as their leader. Therefore, the most significant interest in all of these should be the people’s interest.

‘‘It will definitely dampen the spirit of the people when INEC has invested so much in procuring technology that could transmit the result of an election in real time and they are now jettisoning that for the same manual process that was fraught with so many irregularities, complaints and litigations in the past.

‘‘Why did we have to waste the taxpayers’ money to procure these technologies that would have saved us the arguments of irregularities and also litigations that cost so much money and bring bad blood into our communities and societies as a result of non credible conduct of elections?

‘‘There cannot be any excuse for INEC under Prof Mahmood Yakubu having spent humongous billions of naira to prepare for these credible aspects of our electoral system.

‘‘The last general election in 2023, you will recall that one of the major angers by Nigerians was the fact that election results were not transmitted. And what was the excuse from the INEC? INEC said they had glitches.

‘‘Now we are going into stargard elections in the States, are those glitches not resolved by now? This is not encouraging at all.

“I will advise that whatever makes the INEC not to be able to transmit results of elections electronically in real time so that citizens will monitor results as it leaves their polling unit – election are conducted at the polling unit – whatever makes citizens not to be able to monitor results emanating from their polling unit real time have taken away the credibility of that election.”

On his part, Yunusa Tanko, one of the spokespersons for the Labour Party Presidential Campaign Council (LP-PCC) told DAILY POST that his party will follow the rule of law and ensure that the right thing is done for the people.

Tanko said the INEC now resorting back to the old way means there may be another issue in the process, describing it as totally unacceptable.

‘‘We may have to challenge that particular position because one of the things the Electoral Act did was to eliminate this particular manual transmission to give credence to the election.

“And if the INEC is now resorting back to the old way, then that means there may be another issue in this particular process, which is totally unacceptable.

‘‘You know we are still challenging that particular situation in the Supreme Court.

‘‘What we do normally is that when we feel that our right has been trampled upon, we will go to the court and challenge certain things that we know are wrongly being done.

“And some of the problems we had with the INEC were the processes or ways in which they handled the election, having promised Nigerians that they would do justice and fairness to every of the actions that they promised Nigerians. Unfortunately, they did not live to their promise.

‘‘Therefore, as far as we are concerned, as democrats, we will follow the rule of law and order. We will follow the right proceeding and ensure that the right thing is done for the people.’’