PEPT: Electronic Transmission of Result is Optional – Court Rules

Despite providing evidence of failure to upload form EC8A, the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal has argued that Peter Obi and the Labour Party failed to prove that the Independent National Election Commission, INEC, intentionally refused to upload the presidential result to the IREV as assured by the commission.

Recall that INEC cited ‘glitches’ as the cause of the problem experienced at the polling units during uploads of the Presidential election which was not experienced in the Senate and House of Representatives election.

Delivering the judgement on Wednesday at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, Justice Haruna Tsammani led a five-man panel stating that INEC has the ultimate control to determine its mode of collation which can also be manual.

It further added that electronic transmission of results is optional and the only device that must be used by INEC for elections is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS).

In its defense, it noted that there’s no regulation showing BVAS must be used to electronically transmit results from polling units.