There won’t be issues uploading results of Bayelsa, Kogi, Imo Gov polls – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has assured there won’t be any glitches when the results of the elections in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi are uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV).

INEC’s Chief Press Secretary, Rotimi Oyekanmi, gave the assurance in an interview on Channels Television monitored by The Nation.

The Nation reported that there were a lot of issues with the IReV during the 2023 elections, which INEC attributed to technical difficulties.

He said: “We have been using the IReV for all governorship elections, but it [2023] was the first time we deployed it for the general elections setting. Well, we had a glitch for some hours, and we fixed it. But I can assure you that this time around we are not going to have glitches.

“I can affirm that those technical issues have been resolved. Last week, we undertook the mock accreditation, and one of the reasons we did that was to test run these technology gadgets we were going to use, and it was successful.”

Oyekanmi added that there can be technological difficulties at any time but the body has gained experience from the way the general elections in 2023 were handled.

“Technology can throw up challenges, but by and large, we have learnt our lessons from the 2023 general elections,” he stressed.

He also clarified that what INEC does with the IRev portal is uploading and not transmission of results.

“We are not transmitting; we are uploading,” he said, noting that there are differences between transmitting and uploading.

“All we are doing is that we are taking a picture of the polling unit results and uploading same to the portal.”