On Monday, two supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party’s (PDP) presidential candidate Atiku Abubakar rushed out of the National Collation Centre at the Abuja International Convention Center.
Dino Melaye, a member of the 8th National Assembly from Kogi West Senatorial District, Emeka Ihedioha, a former governor of Imo State, and a Labour Party agent, among others, staged a walkout against Mahmood Yakubu, the head of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), because they were unhappy with how state collation officers were compiling results for the presidential election (SCOPs).
At the second day’s continued collation of the results from the February 25 presidential election, the drama broke out at 4:30 p.m.
The results produced by INEC SCOPs were not put to the commission’s Results Viewing Portal (IReV), as frequently promised by the electoral umpire before the February 25 presidential election, Melaye, Ihedioha, and representatives of the Labour Party and others had protested.
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Melaye vehemently stated that without the results being electronically uploaded on IReV, this year’s election is identical to the manual transmission of results carried out in 2015.
Melaye and others adamantly demanded that the INEC Chairman reject the results of the election in Ekiti, claiming that there were instances of over voting and electoral fraud. They said that the way the results were compiled at the centre violated the Electoral Act of 2022 and that they did not accept the SCOPs’ results.
The INEC chairman argued that the results announced by the SCOPs stand and that there was no overvoting in Ekiti. Yakubu added that the procedure had to go on.
Melaye was warned not to “disrupt” the collation process by Mahmood before the break at the PDP chief’s demand that the results released by the SCOPs should have first been put on IReV for transparency and accountability.
Melaye, Ihedioha, and others walked out of the national collation centre in response, but the collation of results has gone on in Abuja without them ever since.
Several party leaders have vehemently decried the inability of INEC representatives at the polling places to upload election results to the IReV. The electoral authority has implemented new technologies for voter authentication and electronic vote transmission for this year’s elections, including the IReV and the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS).
