The Supreme Court says that the non-functioning of the Result Viewing (IReV) portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may reduce the confidence of the voting public in the electoral process.
“Truth must be told, the non-functioning of the IReV may also reduce confidence of the voting public in the electoral process,” Justice John Okoro said on Thursday while delivering the lead judgment in the appeal by the presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar.
Atiku and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi, took the win of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, President Bola Tinubu, in the February 25, 2023 election to the Supreme Court.
Not satisfied with the verdict of the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) earlier in September, Atiku and Obi approached the Supreme Court seeking the nullification of Tinubu’s election on the grounds of double nomination, alleged certificate forgery, non-transmission of results electronically, 25% votes in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), amongst others.
However, on Thursday, the apex court threw out all the appeals for lacking merit.
On the non-functionality of the IReV, the Justice Okoro-led panel held that the non-availability of election results on IReV was not a ground for the nullification of the February 2023 presidential election.
He said by Section 135 (1) of the Electoral Act 2022, the election shall not be liable to be invalidated by reason of non-compliance of electronic transmission of results.
“From the provisions of the Act stated above, it is crystal clear that the petitioner (Atiku) seeking to nullify the election on the grounds of non-compliance must not only lead evidence to prove the non-compliance but most also show to the court how the non-compliance substantially affect the outcome of the election.
“The appellants abandoned the duties imposed on them to lead credible evidence to prove non-compliance but relied solely on the failure of the first respondent (INEC) to transmit results real-time to the IReV portal,” the justice said.
Citing Oyetola VS INEC, the apex court aligned with the lower court that the IReV portal is not a collation centre but a result viewing centre.
“Whereas the election system is made of centres where results are collated at various stages of the election, the INEC result viewing portal is to give the public the opportunity to view polling unit results on election day.
“What this means is that when the IReV portal fails, it does not stop the collation of results which up to the last election was manually done.
“The failure or malfunction of the IReV deprived the public and even election administrators and monitors the opportunity of viewing the portal and comparing the results collated with the ones transmitted into the IReV,” he said.
The justice affirmed that the Electoral Act empowered INEC to determine the electronic device to be used during election, saying that the non-availability of election results on IReV was not a ground for the nullification of the February 2023 presidential election.
The panel thereafter threw out the appeals of both Obi and Atiku and affirmed the victory of Tinubu in the February 2023 poll.