TheCable

Attahiru Jega, a former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says the electoral body needs to investigate the failure of its result viewing portal (IReV) during the 2023 elections.

Jega spoke on Friday while featuring on Inside Sources with Laolu Akande aired on Channels Television.

On February 25, 2023, the commission could not immediately upload the presidential election results on the portal in line with section 60 of the Electoral Act 2022.

There were protests by political parties against the manual collation of results and the announcement of winners in the polls.

Jega said although INEC did its best during the election, desperate politicians may have infiltrated the IReV.

“In 2023, INEC did its best under very difficult circumstances and a lot of these difficult circumstances were caused by the mindset of our selfish politicians who wanted to win by hook or by crook,” Jega said.

“INEC has over time introduced technology to make the process of election results very transparent with integrity but from my own experience when I was in INEC from 2011 to 2015, I suspect that a lot of that has continued to be so up to 2023, our reckless politicians try to be a step ahead of INEC.

“If you introduce something today and you try it, they try to be a step ahead of you and beat it by the next election.

“And of course, they can also use ways and means to not only truncate but also bypass something that has actually been put legitimately in order to add to the integrity of the process.

“If you ask my opinion, I feel very strongly that INEC needs to tell us more about what happened with the IReV.

“In fact, at one point, I was even calling for a thorough public inquiry about what happened with regards to IReV.

“I feel that something has happened, that in spite of the confidence and the very articulate manner the INEC chairman (Mahmood Yakubu) had spoken about the IReV, it then failed.

“I believe that some of our reckless politicians may have infiltrated it and truncated it but INEC will take the blame for that.”

Jega said once the court cases are resolved, INEC needs to get to the root of what happened with the IReV.