The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has clarified that its results viewing portal serves the purpose of enhancing election transparency and is not a system for collation or transmission of results.
Paul Omokore, the INEC Director of ICT, provided this clarification during his presentation titled, ‘The role of BVAS, IReV for Bayelsa, Kogi, and Imo Governorship elections’ at a two-day capacity workshop for journalists in Akwanga, Nasarawa State.
Omokore emphasized that journalists and the public should not conflate the uploading of polling units’ results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal with the electronic transmission of results. He explained that the INEC Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) is specifically designed to upload images of polling units’ results onto form EC8A on IReV, and this process does not equate to the electronic transmission of results.
“Form EC8A is the result that we collated at the PUs. We use BVAS to snap this form and upload the same thing to the IReV portal for public viewing.
“This is not a collecting system. It does not tally a system. What it does is to snap the EC8A which is the result at the polling unit and upload the same to the public view. That is all.
“I know that 70 per cent of the populace think that the others have collected the figures. No.
“All what it does is snap the EC8A that the presiding officers have collected all the scores of the parties, signed and stamped, and then send this same picture to the IReV for public viewing. That is all. So it is not a collating system,” he said.
Omokore said that from the inception of elections in Nigeria, results were transmitted manually, from the PUs to the collation centres.
He said that technology deployment had proven to be an effective tool in achieving free, fair and credible elections.
He said that while challenges were eminent, INEC had put in extra efforts to ensure that they were mitigated.
“The role of BVAS is to ensure ‘one person, one vote’.
“The role of the IReV Portal is to improve the openness and credibility of our elections,” he said.
The chairman, Partners for Electoral Reform, Ezenwa Nwagwu, in his lecture titled, ‘Ethical Dilemma in Election Reporting: Navigating Bias, Balance and Promoting Transparency,’ urged journalists to uphold accurate reporting.
He said that the core issues in election reporting are independence, unbiased and accuracy reports by the media.
“Accurate and transparent report is the only cure for fake news, which is the responsibility of the media,” Nwagu said.
He advised the media to always investigate the reasons behind some news being presented to the media by people with biased minds on the electoral process and balance it with the provision of the laws.