By Harry Awurumibe, Editor Abuja Bureau
As anxiety continues to mount amongst Nigerians over the rumoured plans by the electoral umpire to discard the viewing of election results realtime during next year’s general election in Nigeria, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has for the umpteenth time said it will deploy the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal for the 2023 General Election.
The latest clarification is coming from Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, the Chief Press Secretary (CPS) to the Executive Chairman of INEC, Professor Mahmood Yakubu who described the rumour going around as a ploy by some unpatriotic Nigerians to create unnecessary tension going into an important election which will shape the future of the country.
Oyekanmi told Prompt News Online in a chat today that: “there is no going back on that. For the avoidance of doubt, the Commission will upload election results from each of the 176,846 polling units across the country to the IReV during the 2023 General Election”.
According to him every Nigerian that has access to the portal will see the 2023 election results in real time, pointing out that the Commission has at no time told anyone that it will not transmit election results from the Polling Units across the country.
Said he: “To be sure, there was no time that the Commission said, suggested or insinuated that it will no longer deploy the IReV. The public should permanently disregard any unfounded rumour to the contrary”.
“I appeal to Nigerians who are yet to do so, to log on to https://www.inecelectionresults.ng/login and register with their unique username and password, so that they can view the polling unit election results in the evening of the Election Day in February and March 2023″.
This latest clarification should at least calm the nerves of the Nigerian citizens who might have been calling for an official statement from Professor Yakubu.
