It is now a waiting game for Nigerians as the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, begun the collation of results for the 2023 presidential and National Assembly elections.
The process was set in motion by the chairman of the electoral commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu when he formally declared open the National Collation Centre at the International Conference Centre, Abuja at about 1pm.
Ground rules for collation
The INEC chairman while setting the ground rules for the collation of the election results, advised political parties to only draw their figures from INEC.
Mahmood also said the collation of presidential election results will be done at four levels — first at the 8,889 wards, then at the 774 local government areas, then the Resident Electoral Commissioners at the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory will submit the votes per candidate in Abuja.
He noted “The collation centre is hereby declared open until the final announcement of the results of the 2023 presidential election.”
Ekiti presents first result, Tinubu wins
Ekiti state became the first state to present their result to the INEC chair on Sunday.
INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner for Ekiti, Ayobami Salami, who reeled out the results of the presidential election at the collation centre in Abuja, said Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, polled 201,494 votes followed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 89,554 votes.
Peter Obi of the Labour Party, LP, polled 11,397 votes while Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, NNPP, polled 264 votes.
INEC rejects Okowa’s LG results for over-voting
It was a tough call for the vice presidential candidate of the PDP and Delta state governor, Ifeanyi Okowa, as the electoral body in Delta State rejected the presidential results of the local government area citing over-voting.
30 percent of results on IREV
The INEC as Sunday 9pm had so far uploaded about 30 percent of presidential election results to its results viewing portal (IReV).
There are 176,846 polling units where results are to be uploaded, only 41,649 had been uploaded to the portal.
In a statement on Sunday, YIAGA Africa urged INEC to be transparent and communicate the challenges faced during the deployment of the IReV.
Samson Itodo, executive director of YIAGA Africa, said the failure of the IReV system “undermines public confidence in the process”.
Result Viewing Portal hit by technical hitches
The electoral commission confirmed that its Results Viewing Portal, IReV, which was set up for the management of elections results, has been relatively slow and unsteady due to technical hitches.
The commission’s chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye, disclosed this on Sunday.
The confirmation followed complaints by Nigerians over their inability to access the IReV at a time results of the 2023 presidential and parliamentary elections are expected to start trickling in.
Okoye said “The Commission is aware of challenges with the INEC Results Viewing Portal (IReV). Unlike in off-season elections where the portal was used, it has been relatively slow and unsteady. The Commission regrets this setback, especially because of the importance of IReV in our results management process.”
According to him, “the problem is totally due to technical hitches related to scaling up the IReV from a platform for managing off-season, State elections, to one for managing nationwide general elections.”
He noted that it is not unusual for glitches to occur and be corrected in such situations.
“Consequently, the Commission wishes to assure Nigerians that the challenges are not due to any intrusion or sabotage of our systems, and that the IReV remains well-secured.
“Our technical team is working assiduously to solve all the outstanding problems, and users of the IReV would have noticed improvements since last night,” he said.
Abdulsalami’s brother loses bid to National Assembly
It was defeat for a younger brother to former military Head of State, General Abdulsalami Abubakar, Ado Abdulsalami, has lost in his bid to go to the National Assembly.
Abdulsalami, who contested for the Chanchaga federal constituency seat which is being vacated by the All Progressives Congress governorship candidate, Umar Mohammed Bago, lost to the PDP candidate, Mallam Cashier, who was contesting the position for the third time, 2015,/2019/and now 2023.
Mallam Cashier a retired civil servant polled 35,688 votes to defeat Ado who had 19,282.
