2023 polls: Why server failed to upload presidential results – INEC

• Report shameful, reinforces INEC was in bed with APC – Atiku

• INEC deceiving Nigerians, medicine after death – Obi

 

Taiwo George, Abbas Jimoh, Baba Martins & Terkula Igidi

 

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has formally explained why its result viewing portal (IREV) failed to upload the presidential results of the February 23, 2023 election despite the seamless working of the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).

This was contained in parts of the official 526-page report of the 2023 general elections released by INEC ahead of the first anniversary of the election.

It took weeks for the presidential results to be uploaded to the IReV, leading to widespread protests by opposition parties and their supporters.

Also, the results eventually posted on IReV were analysed by several media and civil society organisations with a conclusion that the votes for Bola Ahmed Tinubu, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), were inflated in Rivers State while those of Peter Obi, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), were reduced.

Tinubu was credited with 231,591 votes while Obi had 175,071 votes in the official results. However, the results posted on IReV appeared to show that Obi won Rivers with about 100,000 votes, which was, however, not significant enough to upturn the national gap of over two million votes between him and Tinubu on hand and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, former Vice President Atiku Abubakar, who came second.

INEC has insisted that the results represented voters’ sentiments and rejected accusations of bias and manipulation.

The commission, in the report documented the failure of the result viewing portal (IReV) during the presidential poll.

According to the report, while the elections were generally peaceful and successful, however, a key challenge that impacted on the public perception of the election and elicited widespread commentary is the failure to upload polling unit (PU) results of the presidential election to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time at the close of polls on Saturday, February 25, 2023.

“The operational methodology and the concept behind the upload of results to the IReV for public viewing is quite simple. At the end of polls, polling unit results (Form EC8As) are scanned and uploaded to the IReV by the presiding officers. These results are then available for viewing to the public and all stakeholders,” the report stated.

According to the report, the system, which was first deployed during the Nasarawa Central state constituency by-election in August 2020 and tested in 105 subsequent elections, including three off-cycle governorship elections, has tremendously improved public confidence in the integrity and transparency of the commission’s result management process.

The report stated that the challenge of uploading the PU presidential election results on the IReV after the presidential and National Assembly elections on February 25, 2023 was unique.

“In the troubleshooting process, it was established that there was no issue in uploading the PU result sheets of the Senate and House of Representatives elections through the Election Result Modules. However, there was a problem with uploading the presidential election results to the system.

“Attempts to upload the results were generating internal server errors, which refer to a significant impairment that usually originate from within an application due to problems relating to configuration, permissions or failure to create or access application resources correctly.

“Further interrogation of the Election Result Modules indicated that the system is encountering an unexpected configuration problem in mapping the presidential election results uploaded into the system to the participating polling units.”

Report only reinforces that INEC was in bed with APC – Atiku

Meanwhile, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate in the last election, Atiku Abubakar, has described the election report released by INEC as shameful, saying it was manufactured.

The former vice president, who also called for amendment to the relevant laws to make sure that future elections are credible, noted that the explanation given by INEC reinforces that they were in bed with the ruling All Progressives Congress during the election.

Atiku spoke through his spokesman, Mr Paul Ibe.

INEC deceiving Nigerians, medicine after death – Obi

On his part, the presidential candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, said INEC was deceiving Nigerians in its defence for the failure of the presidential election results to be uploaded real time on the INEC result viewing portal (IREV).

Obi, who spoke to Daily Trust through Dr Yunusa Tanko, the Chief spokesperson, Obi-Datti Campaign Committee, said the INEC’s report and excuses are medicine after death.

NNPP spokesman, Yakubu Shendam while reacting to the report said “the Nigerian electoral system is a work in process and elections have come and gone so whatever that is coming now in the name of report does not matter.”