INEC: It’s wrong to say taxpayers’ money was wasted due to technical glitch during election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it is “wrong” to suggest that it wasted taxpayers’ money due to the “glitch” in the upload of results of the presidential election.

Speaking on Sunday in an interview with Channels Television, Festus Okoye, INEC spokesperson, said the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) did not fail during the 2023 poll.

On February 25, INEC was unable to instantly upload the results of the presidential election on its result viewing portal (IReV) like it had promised.

However, the results of the senate and house of representatives elections were instantly uploaded on the portal.

All three elections — senate, house of representatives and presidential — were held on the same day.

The development elicited angry reactions, with many Nigerians accusing the electoral umpire of sabotaging the upload of presidential election results.

Reacting to the development, Okoye said it is unfair to say that the BVAS failed during the 2023 election, adding that the machine worked well for voter registration, accreditation and results upload.

The INEC spokesperson added that the commission only experienced a technical glitch in the upload of presidential election results, while results of other elections were successfully uploaded.

“The machine (BVAS) did not fail. It was used successfully in terms of voter registration, voter accreditation and results upload,” he said.

“We are only talking about result upload for the presidential election.

“It is not true or correct to insinuate even remotely that taxpayers’ money was wasted, and the machine did not work. The machine worked optimally.

“We explained to Nigerians that there were challenges in the uploading of the presidential election result. I’m using the word ‘challenges’ as a layman’s way of trying to explain what happened.

“There was a glitch in terms of uploading of presidential election results.”