Categories: News

Appeal Court Delivers Judgement On INEC’s Discretion On E-transmission Of Results

Eko Hot Blog reports that the Court of Appeal, Lagos division has voided a Federal High Court decision that mandated the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to electronically upload results of the governorship and state of assembly elections from the polling units directly to the Results Viewing Portal (IReV).

A three-man panel, comprising Justice Abubakar Umar, Justice Olukayode Bada and Justice Onyekachi Otisi held that the law gave INEC very wide discretionary powers to determine how it transmits or transfers election results.

The judgment delivered by the panel on July 19 and obtained by The Guardian yesterday, described the suit filed by the Labour Party (LP) at the lower court, which gave rise to the appeal, as an abuse of court process.

On March 8, 2023, the LP, its governorship candidate in Lagos, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour; and 41 others obtained the order of mandamus from Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Lagos, to compel INEC to obey the Electoral Act and its guidelines for the conduct of the elections.

Justice Lifu directed INEC to comply with and enforce Clauses 37 & 38 of the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly Elections in Lagos State.

The clauses mandated presiding officers of all polling units to paste the publication of result posters at the polling units conspicuously after completing the EC8A result sheet.

The order also mandated the presiding officers to electronically transmit/transfer the results of the polling units directly to the collation centre and a scanned copy of the EC8A to INEC’s IReV immediately after the completion of all the polling units voting and result procedure.

Justice Lifu’s judgment also directed INEC to observe, comply and enforce the provisions of Section 27(1) of the Electoral Act 2022 in the distribution of electoral materials during the elections by engaging the services of non-partisan, independent and reliable logistics companies.

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Akande Ismail Abiola

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Akande Ismail Abiola

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