Presidential Poll: ‘There’s no point progressing in error’, Opposition parties say, walk out from collation centre

A coalition of agents of Nigerian opposition parties at the national collation centre of the presidential election results in Abuja have asked the INEC chairman to mandate state collation officers to ensure that results are first uploaded to the INEC portal before they are presented in Abuja.

Agents of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Labour Party, APP, Africa Action Congress and ADC who spoke at the collation centre said there is no reason to proceed with the announcement of presidential election results without first uploading on the INEC portal as mandated by law.

Quoting section 64 of the Electoral Act of 2022, the agents insisted that announcing the results without uploading on the INEC portal is against the law.

‘There’s no point progressing in error,’ one of the agents said.

The ADC called for the suspension of the process for 24 hours to allow electoral officers upload the results to the INEC portal.

Dino Melaye of the PDP said “we want to see it work by going to the portal to see all these results.

The APC and NRM agents, however, disagreed with the opposition parties.

“We are not in unison with them,” the APC agent said.

What does the law say?

Section 64 (4) says:

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“A collation officer or returning officer at an election shall collate and announce the result of an election, subject to his or her verification and confirmation that the –
(a) number of accredited voters stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the number of accredited voters recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 47 (2) of this Act;
(b) the votes stated on the collated result are correct and consistent with the votes
or results recorded and transmitted directly from polling units under section 60 (4) of this Act.

Reacting to their demands, INEC chairman Mahmood Yakub said the election process must first be completed before results can be reviewed. He assured the parties that their grievances will be addressed after the process.

Meanwhile, 10 opposition parties have staged a walkout from the national collation centre in Abuja over the refusal of the INEC chairman to grant their request.