CSO sues INEC, seeks prosecution of staff who failed to transmit election results

Govindex Leadership, Empowerment and Development Foundation, a civil society organisation (CSO), has sued the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for allegedly failing to abide by the law in the presidential and national assembly elections.

There have been complaints, notably, by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Labour Party (LP) that INEC did not transmit election results as provided by the electoral act.

Both parties are already in court challenging the outcome of elections that produced Bola Tinubu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the president-elect.

In a court filing seen by TheCable on Thursday, the organisation asked the federal high court in Abuja to declare INEC and its presiding officers, not competent to conduct elections.

The electoral commission is the only defendant in the suit.

“A declaration that having regards to the provisions of the Section 160(1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria 1999(As Amended), Sections 60(5) & 148 of the Electoral Act, 2022, paragraph (Clauses) 38 (i), (ii) & (iii) of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections, 2022, the Defendant through her presiding officers are mandatorily required to electronically transmit, transfer or upload the scanned copy of Form EC8A result of the polling units directly to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission, that is, the usage of Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) or such other relevant technology to upload the result into the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) immediately and in real-time after completion of the polling units voting and Results procedures but before taking the results to the ward collation Centre from the polling units,” some of the reliefs sought by the organisation reads in part.

“A declaration that having regards to the provisions of Section 60(6) of the Electoral Act, 2022, the Defendant is under obligation to compile names of the Presiding Officers, whether ad hoc or permanent, who failed to upload or electronically transmit or transfer the Election results of the polling units directly to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission, that is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) or such other relevant technology and send the said list to office of Inspector-General of Police for investigation and prosecution.

“An order of court mandating the defendant, her presiding officers of collation of results of polling units ad hoc or permanent Staff, to electronically transmit, transfer or upload the result of the polling units by the usage of the Biomodial Voter Accreditation or such other relevant technology to upload scanned copy of the form EC8A to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IRev) immediately and in real-time after completion of the polling units voting and Results procedure but before taking the results to the ward collation Centre from the polling units.

“An order of the court mandating the defendant to compile names of the presiding Officers, whether ad hoc or permanent, who failed to upload or electronically transmit or transfer the election results of the polling units directly to the collation system as prescribed by the commission, that is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) and send the said list to office of inspector-general of police for investigation and prosecution within 14 days of making the order or such time as the court may order.”

No date has been fixed for the hearing of the suit.