The Court of Appeal in Lagos has voided a Federal High Court judgment that ordered 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 of the court, comprising Justices Abubakar Umar, Olukayode Bada, and Onyekachi Otisi, held that the law gave INEC “very wide discretionary powers” to determine how it transmits or transfers election results.
The panel described the suit filed by the Labour Party (LP) at the lower court, which gave rise to the appeal, as an abuse of the court process.
On March 8, 2023, the Labour Party; its governorship candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and 41 others obtained the order of mandamus to compel INEC to obey the Electoral Act and its guidelines for the conduct of the elections, in a judgment delivered by Justice Peter Lifu of the Federal High Court, Lagos.
In the judgment, Justice Lifu compelled INEC to comply with and enforce Clauses 37 & 38 of the Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of the Governorship and House of Assembly Elections in Lagos State.
The clauses mandate 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 center and a scanned copy of the EC8A to INEC’s IReV immediately after the completion of all the polling unit’s voting and result procedures.
