INEC Sued Over Alleged Failure To Upload Election Results On IReV Portal

INEC Sued Over Alleged Failure To Upload Election Results On IReV Portal

Bob James, a lawyer, has filed a lawsuit against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for allegedly refusing to electronically transmit presidential and National Assembly election results from polling units to its IReV portal.

The plaintiff named INEC and the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) as defendants in a suit filed on Wednesday, 15 March, at the Federal High Court in Abuja.

James stated that INEC was under “statutory duty to upload electronically on its portal the results of the presidential and National Assembly elections held on 25 February…immediately” from every polling station across Nigeria.

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The plaintiff asked the court to rule on whether the electoral umpire’s “failure or refusal to upload the results from each polling unit on the day of the election to the INEC IRev portal on the day of the election” does not invalidate the results.

The plaintiff requested that the court rule that INEC was required by the Electoral Act and its own guidelines to upload results from each polling station “immediately after counting and recording on Form Ec 8A on election day.”

James asked the court to rule that INEC’s failure to upload the results violated its own guidelines for conducting the 2023 general elections.

“A declaration that the presidential election held by the 1st respondent (INEC) on 25 February, 2023, is null and void and of no effect whatsoever, the result of same not having been declared in accordance with the law,” he said.

Mr James stated in court filings sighted on Wednesday that he has a duty as a lawyer and Nigerian to ensure that public institutions “entrusted with constitutional powers to conduct elections do so strictly in accordance with the law.”

He claimed that more than 90% of the election results for the 25th of February had not been uploaded to the INEC IRev portal as of 12 midnight on the day of the polls.

Referencing paragraph 38 of INEC regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 elections, the plaintiff said, an electoral presiding officer “shall use the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A (election result paper) to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) as prescribed by the commission.”

James further pointed out that using the word – shall- puts a statutory responsibility on INEC to electronically transmit the election results from every polling station in Nigeria to its portal.

“Where a law prescribes the procedure to be followed in the performance of an act and that procedure is not complied with, ‘the performance of the act in the circumstance is a nullity,’” the plaintiff argued while citing the decision of Walter Onnoghen, a former Chief Justice of Nigeria (CJN) in the case of SPDC Nigeria Ltd v Agbara (2019).

The case has not been assigned to a judge for a hearing.

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