The Labour Party (LP) has kicked against the absence of polling unit results for the presidential election on the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
In a statement on Saturday, LP National Chairman, Barrister Julius Abure said INEC officials in some polling units in Lagos State claimed that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machines developed fault.
Abure also said the same situation is playing out in some polling units in Delta State.
Abure further said: “Information reaching me has it that in Lagos, they have refused to upload the results for the presidential election. They have uploaded that of the Senate and House of Representatives but for the presidential, they have refused. And they are using the police to drive our agents and supporters out of the place. And they said that they have firm instruction from INEC headquarters not to upload.
“For example, in Kosofe, they put the collation centre in a Local Government Area headquarters. The place is surrounded by APC (All Progressives Congress) and people are afraid of their life. They are not uploading. They said that they have been given instruction to insist that the BVAS is faulty. And most of the places we won, but they have refused to upload.
“As I speak, APC officials are in Yaba office of INEC negotiating with the officials. What I have said now is happening in Agege, Kosofe, Oshodi-Isolo, Surulere.
“We have this situation all over. In Ibeju Lekki, our local government chairman who attempted to stop them was arrested by the police”.
Indeed, no presidential election result from any of the has been posted to the IReV portal as at the time of Abure released his statement. But INEC commenced the upload later in the day. But by 11:30 pm on Saturday, only 4,102 polling unit results out of the 176,846 nationwide had been uploaded.
A civil society group, Yiaga Africa, had earlier expressed concern over the failure of INEC to upload results on IReV hours after results had been announced in polling units where voting had been concluded.
The portal was designed by the commission for presiding officers to upload results from polling units.
States with presidential election results on the IReV included Abia, Akwa Ibom, Bayelsa, Borno, Enugu, Gombe, Imo, Jigawa, Kaduna, Katsina, Kogi, Kwara, Niger, Ogun, Ondo, Oyo, Plateau, Rivers and Yobe. But none of them have complete results as at 8:am on Sunday.
