Former chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, has accused “reckless politicians” of infiltrating the election result viewing portal, IReV, during the 2023 general election.
Jega, appearing on Channels Television’s Inside Sources Programme, called for an investigation into the matter. He revealed that during the presidential election on February 25, 2023, the commission faced difficulties in immediately uploading the election results onto the IReV portal, sparking public outcry.
Expressing his dismay, Jega mentioned that despite the commission’s diligent efforts, certain desperate politicians hindered progress by tampering with the portal.
Jega said, “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.
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“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 for 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.”
He reiterated his call for INEC to thoroughly investigate the fate of the IReV portal once all court cases have been settled.
(PUNCH)