The Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) has held that the National Electoral Commission (INEC) cannot be compelled to transmit election results electronically.
The court further held that the petitioner, labour party can not raise the issue of electronic transmission of results because it has not appealed the judgement of the federal high court on the issue, therefore the decision is binding.
Presiding justice Haruna Tsammani said that besides the decision of the federal high court neither the Electoral Act 2022 nor the INEC manual provided for the electronic transmission of election results.
“Nothing in the Electoral Act 2022 states that BVAS should be used to transmit election results,” he said.
The court said INEC has elated to transmit results manually from the polling unit to the ward collation centre, then from ward to local government, from local governments to state and finally to the National collation centre.
The court also held that the petitioners failed to prove that the system was deliberately programmed by INEC to manipulate or to rig the election.