A former National Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Festus Okoye, has dismissed claims about poor network coverage at polling units, saying every single unit in Nigeria has internet access and that concerns about connectivity are exaggerated.
Okoye made the assertion on Tuesday, February 24, while appearing on Trust TV to discuss the recently amended Electoral Act, which was passed by the National Assembly and signed into law by President Bola Tinubu.
He explained that INEC’s electoral devices are equipped with mechanisms that store results locally when network coverage is temporarily unavailable, and automatically transmit the data once connectivity is restored.
“All the INEC machines for the election come with power bank and other accessories,” Okoye said.
“Now, when elections are over, the Presiding Officer has snapped the Form EC8A and there’s no network at that particular point, it stores the information in. The moment it comes into contact with the network, it transmits immediately.
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“So, what the Presiding Officer has inputted, he cannot undo it until he gets network. Now these whole issue about network, I think it’s an unnecessary debate.”
He was clear about his position on network availability.
“There’s no polling unit in this country where there’s no network. None. Forget about all these things about network connectivity. It’s just a lame excuse.”
Okoye also pointed out that INEC had successfully uploaded polling unit results through its result viewing portal even before the introduction of the iReV system.
“Before iReV was deployed, the Commission conducted elections in different places and has used its result viewing portal’s to upload polling units level results.”