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Presidential Election May Be Cancelled, And INEC Chairman May Go To Jail If…

Published

2 years ago

February 28, 2023

The political parties have raised objection to further collation of the Presidential election results until the results are uploaded from the BVAS to compare with the results being collated, citing section 64(4)(a)(b).

The INEC chairman is both the collation officer and the returning officer for presidential election under s. 25(2)(h) and d 25(3) of the Electoral Act 2022 respectively.

S. 64(5) of the Electoral Act 2022 requires the INEC chairman to verify the objection using the BVAS per s. 47(2), 60(4) of the Electoral Act 2022. S. 64(6)(a)(b)(c)(d) of the Electoral Act requires the INEC chairman to resolve the objection using the original results from the polling units and the BVAS to verify the results per s. 47(2), 60(4) of the Electoral Act 2022.

S. 64(7) of the Electoral Act, requires that if INEC chairman finds that the result is not correct, he shall resolve it based on s.64(6)(a)(b)(c)(d) of the Electoral Act. He will have a new result, which he will announce.

S65(1)(c) of the Electoral Act 2022 further gives INEC chairman the power to review the presidential election results using the BVAS upload as required by Electoral Act 2022.

The intention of the legislation in making BVAS a law is to use the uploading of the results to avoid election rigging and manipulation; which INEC chairman is not complying with, raising suspicion of his being an accomplice in the ongoing presidential election rigging.

S. 70 permits INEC to make guidelines for elections; and one of them is the uploading of election results through BVAS as INEC informed Nigerians severally; apart from being Electoral Act requirement per s.64(5),(6)(a)(b)(c)(d) of the Electoral Act, it is also a subsidiary legislation by INEC guidelines that must be complied with.

S. 137 of the Electoral Act 2022 does not require oral evidence if a political party has original or certified true copies to prove non compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act.

So, the demand by the political parties that results be uploaded in INEC PORTAL from the BVAS to compare with the results being collated to know the correctness is legal per s. 68 of the Electoral Act 2022.

The refusal by INEC chairman to yield to the requests of the political parties is illegal; and consequently renders the presidential election results being collated illegal; because something (the results) cannot stand on nothing (the illegality). Failure of INEC chairman to act based on s.64(5), (6)(a)(b)(c)(d) of the Electoral Act will warrant his going to jail under s. 64(9) of the Electoral Act.