Hannatu Musawa the Deputy Spokesperson at the All-Progressives Congress’ Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) has said that the February 25 presidential elections were a very democratic process.
Speaking to Arise TV, she said APC lost Lagos and Abuja to a third force which is the Labour Party, indicating that the process was indeed a free and fair election. She said:
- “The fact that this election has brought out so many different surprises should tell Nigerians that this was a very democratic process. You have a ruling party that was literally struggling. So, this was a very fair process and before the elections, it was the opposition that was very happy about the Naira redesign policy, which affected our party in a negative way.”
Uploading of results: According to Musawa, opposition parties did not complain about the collation of results when the results were being compiled at the polling unit, ward, local government area, and state stages. But only did so at the national coalition centre when it was obvious that the APC was leading.
Note, however, that there were evidence claims to show that right from the polling unit level, many Nigerians made video recordings of their polling units lamenting the inability of electoral officers to upload the results to the IReV portal as expected.
There were also complaints about many results being falsified after they were not uploaded on IReV but were taken away from polling units and figures were changed following financial inducements and threats to life by thugs across various polling units.
These complaints kept rising until political parties took the irregularity up with the INEC Chairman at the National Collation Center. Meanwhile, INEC has failed to upload all the polling unit results on its portal.
What the law says about these issues: Section 62, subsections 1 to 3 of the Electoral Act says:
- “After the recording and announcement of the result, the presiding officer shall deliver same along with election materials under security and accompanied by the candidates or their polling agents, where available, to such person as may be prescribed by the Commission.
- “The Commission shall compile, maintain and update, on a continuous basis, a register of election results to be known as the National Electronic Register of Election Results which shall be a distinct database or repository of polling unit by polling unit results, including collated election results, of each election conducted by the Commission in the Federation, and the Register of Election Results shall be kept in electronic format by the Commission at its national headquarters.
- “Any person or political party may obtain from the Commission, on payment of such fees as may be determined by the Commission, a certified true copy of any election result kept in the National Electronic Register of Election Results for a State, Local Government, Area Council, registration area or Electoral Ward or Polling Unit, as the case may be, and the certified true copy may be in printed or electronic format.”
Meanwhile, Section 68 of the Electoral Act says: “The Commission shall cause to be posted on its notice board and website, a notice showing the candidates at the election and their scores, and the person declared as elected or returned at the election.”
Section 120, subsection 3 of the Electoral Act, says: “Any polling agent, political party, or party agent who conspires to make a false declaration of the result of an election commits an offence and is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both.”
