The Presidential Election Petition Tribunal (PEPT) ruled on Wednesday that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was free to transmit election results however it wished, and not just electronically. President Bola Tinubu’s media aide, Tunde Rahman, responded to the decision.
The panel stated that INEC is free to specify the mode it plans to utilise when transmitting election results.
Remember that INEC’s failure to electronically transmit election results from the polling places to the collation centres was one of the arguments made by Peter Obi and the Labour Party in their petitions contesting Bola Tinubu’s victory in the 2023 presidential election.
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However, the court ruled on Wednesday that there was no provision of the law that mandated INEC solely use electronic means to send results from polling stations to iREV.
The electoral agency is free to choose how it would transmit election results, according to the court, which also noted that INEC is given legal authority to choose how to collate election results in Nigeria.
It also ruled that INEC is not required to electronically submit the election results.
Rahman responded to the court’s ruling by saying that Peter Obi’s supporters had been informed about what the court had just verified but had chosen not to heed the warning.
He wrote: “We told the Obedients but they did not listen. Now the court has ruled: “INEC at liberty to determine method of election results upload.”
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