By Chimezie Godfrey
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has denied reports of alleged plans by the Commission to rig the 2023 General Election.
The National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye made this known in a statement made available to the press in Abuja on Friday.
Okoye said the claim was patently false, as he reassured Nigerians that the Commission would transmit results directly from the polling units as witnessed in Ekiti and Osun State Governorship elections.
He said,”Our attention has been drawn to reports in a section of the media of alleged plans by the Commission to rig the 2023 General Election by abandoning the direct and real-time electronic upload of polling unit results to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal by the Registration Area Technical Support Staff (RATECHSS).
“The claim is patently false. The Commission has repeatedly reassured Nigerians that it will transmit results directly from the polling units as we witnessed in Ekiti and Osun State Governorship elections and 103 more constituencies where off-cycle Governorship/FCT Area Council elections and bye-elections were held since August 2020. The results can still be viewed on the portal.
“The IReV is one of the innovations introduced by the Commission to ensure the integrity and credibility of election results in Nigeria. It is therefore inconceivable that the Commission will turn around and undermine its own innovations.”
Okoye advised the general public to ignore the reports, adding that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and IReV have come to stay for voter accreditation and uploading of polling unit results in real-time in Nigeria.
