Question 1 - Did INEC refuse to upload results? Well, INEC said it had technical glitches, whether it was deliberate or unplanned, I do not know. Could it be a competence issue? With the extent of my knowledge in Information Technology, I will say one cannot tell, except one investigates the series of actions, but I do not think it has to do with competence, it looks most likely unplanned, considering that the uploads resumed and many people could later confirm their PU results to be correct. If they uploaded it later and it was correct, it sure points to the fact that they could have uploaded it earlier if there were no glitches.
Question 2 - Which results did INEC announce when nothing was uploaded? This is where I see many people do not understand how the process works. INEC created a platform for the public to view results polling unit by polling unit, the portal is called INEC Results Vieweing Portal, shortened to iREV. The key and operational word there is VIEWING, that is, a view ONLY solution.
iREV has nothing to do with collation, but people protesting the results have been misleading people that it has something to do with collation. The purpose of iREV is to showcase transparency to the public, the process of collation itself is transparent to all political parties if they choose to excercise their rights and this is how it happens. Elections hold at the smallest unit called polling unit, once concluded, the result is announced at the PU. Do take note that ALL political parties have the right to be present at the PU to witness voting and announcement of results. Upon conclusion at the PUs, the results are taken to the next level called Wards, a ward has many PUs under it. Collation happens at the ward level and just like at the PUs, party agents also witness the collation. From the ward, the results are taken to the Local Government collation centre, same procedure, after local government figures are collated, they are taken to state collation centres. It is the totals arrived at at the state collation, that are taken to the national collation centre.
The results being announced in Abuja are figures already collated at 3 levels - Ward, Local Government and State - all winessed by political parties, with the collation having nothing to do with iREV. The parties have situation rooms, they already have their own figures and that of their opponents, the winner knows, the loser knows, it is therefore funny that political parties will be taking advantage of failure of the iREV platform to perform as promised, to rile up anger in people. The leading parties have not spoken about collation being faulty and I am sure they witnessed the collation at all levels, they have been dwelling iREV that did not work and I keep asking, what does iREV have to do with collation? iREV was just for the PU Presiding Officers to snap the result sheets and upload for people to access.
I am anti chaos, we do not have to destroy our own country whenever we are dissatisfied. The parties protesting would never have raised dust about iREV if the figures they had were in their favour. The clamour to abort the process was because they have the figures already and it wasn't in their favour, it takes no genius to know this. For me, if any party is aggrieved, they ought to take the route prescribed by the laws of the land, the laws already envisaged dissatisfaction and processes had been created for seeking redress, "Let everything scatter" is not anywhere in the process.
I am looking forward to the cases to be put forward by the parties who have condemned the process, I am wondering if they would try to prove that they won the election conducted with a process they condemned or if they would ask for everything to be done again, having condemned the entire process.
