February 27, (THEWILL) – The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) has pulled down the election guidelines from its website, THEWILL confirms Monday evening.
Many people who tried to follow the link to the INEC’s election guidelines complained to THEWILL that when they tried, something else comes up and that all their efforts indicated that the guideline had been removed .
By virtue of Section 60 (5) of the Electoral Act 2022 and Clause 38 of the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Election, 2022, presiding officers must transmit results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal on completion of elections. Failure to comply is a criminal offence. A presiding officer that violates this requirement is liable on conviction to a fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for a term not less than six months. This is how important the issue of electronic transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal is under the law.
All efforts to cònfirm the development from INEC through the National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Publicity , Barrister Festus Okoye, proved abortive .
When a call was put through to him, he said ‘ busy’ and cut the line. Message sent to his phone line and his WhatsApp were not responded to as at the time of filing this report.
THEWILL recalls that the People’s Democratic Party, PDP, Collation Agent , Senator Dino Melaye, earlier on Monday, walked out of the INEC Collation Centre in Abuja. He insisted that the results from the polling units ought to have been loaded on the INEC Viewing Portal before results are brought to the Collation Centre but that was not the case.
INEC on Sunday evening had acknowledged technical hitches on its Election results Viewing portal but assured that all efforts were ongoing to tackle the problems.
AYO ESAN, has been actively reporting and analyzing political events for different newspapers for over 18 years. He has also successfully covered national and state elections in Nigeria since the inception of this democracy in 1999.
