Chimamanda: Onanuga Incorrectly Claims Electronic Transmission Not Relevant INEC Regulation

Bayo Onanuga, spokesperson for the President-elect, Bola Ahmed Tinubu, has incorrectly claimed that electronic transmission of results was not relevant for the conduct of Nigeria’s February 25 presidential election. 

Onanuga made the claim in response to an op-ed published in American magazine, The Atlantic, by popular Nigerian writer, Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, urging the U.S president Joe Biden not to congratulate Tinubu for emerging winner of the presidential election. 

Chimamanda had noted among other things that the presidential election was flawed by irregularities, including failure by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to comply with its own laws. 

Responding to Chimamanda, Onanuga said she and supporters of the Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, “have this infantile idea that electronic transmission of result is an angelic feature of the Electoral Act” adding “This is far from the truth. Rather it is just an add-on to an already concluded election process.”

But Onanuga’s claim is at variance with provisions in Section 64 (4) of the Electoral Act which mandates that “A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the— 

“(a) number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 47 (2) of this Act ; and 

“(b) the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 60 (4) of this Act.” 

Subsection 5 of 64 further mandates that, “Subject to subsection (1), a collation officer or returning officer shall use the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 47 (2) of this Act and the votes or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 60 (4) of this Act to collate and announce the result of an election if a collated result at his or a lower level of collation is not correct.”

Also, the Electoral Act provides in Section 148 that “The Commission may, subject to the provisions of this Act, issue regulations, guidelines, or manuals for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of this Act and for its administration.”

Ahead of the 2023 general election, INEC made laws to govern its conduct of the election. 

Section 38 of the ‘Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2022’ released by INEC before the 2023 election instructs that results of the polls must be transmitted electronically to a dedicated portal accessible to the public. 

The section mandates thus: “On completion of all the Polling Unit voting and results procedures, the Presiding Officer shall:

“(i) Electronically transmit or transfer the result of the Polling Unit, direct to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission.

“(ii) Use the BVAS to upload a scanned copy of the EC8A to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), as prescribed by the Commission.”