Alake – The Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has said that there is no law which makes it mandatory for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit electoral results electronically.
Special Adviser on Media and Communications at the PCC, Dele Alake made the declaration in Abuja on Friday while speaking at a news conference.
According to the APC stalwart, the electoral transmission of results should be done at the discretion of the electoral body.
He maintained that the Electoral Act 2022 does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.
He insisted that Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 which the Labour Party (LP) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) relied on would not suffice in court.
He said, “The complaint over the electronic transmission of election results is not supported by law.
“Section 38 of the Electoral Act 2022 relied upon by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) to challenge the result of the Feb. 25 presidential election has nothing to do with the transmission of election results.
Section 60, sub-section 2 of the Act deals with the transmission of results and it is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.
“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot in any way change the results that have been announced.”
Speaking further, he insisted that what was important was the counting of votes in the presence of party agents and the hearing of voters.
He maintained that it was preposterous to claim that the uploading results would lead to the manipulation of figures.