Former Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Attahiru Jega, has said the nation’s electoral body must examine the causes of failure to upload results of the presidential poll to the INEC results viewing portal (IReV).
In an interview with ARISE Television, the former INEC chairman said he could relate with many of the challenges faced during the general election but that of uploading of results should be looked into.
“And if you are so confident with the planning process, and at the end of it all, there is a failure somewhere, you will take the blame because you are the leader,” Jega said.
“But it does not mean you are the one who has deliberately done it because you are compromised. We need to be fair in our assessment.”
The former INEC chairman said the assessment of the success and failure rate of the card reader was implemented before he left the commission.
He said, “The card reader failed in five percent of places of deployment which is 95 percent success. But the pressmen and politicians were just focused on where it failed. But it can never be perfect,” Jega said.
“I can tell you that the BVAS that was developed to replace the card reader is of significant value to the electoral process. The major failure experienced during the polls relates to the upload to the IREV as promised by the chairman.
“I think we need to interrogate why the uploading, specifically with regards to the presidential election, failed.
“This needs to be done, not just in-house by INEC, but in a very transparent manner. I think there will be a lot of revelations with regards to what happened in order to properly apportion blame to who is responsible for what happened.”
