The much anticipated 2023 general elections in Nigeria finally kicked off today Saturday, February 25, 2023 with the Presidential election and National Assembly elections. While some polling units had a peaceful exercise, some others were marred by varying degrees of violence and several other unpleasant circumstances.
For instance, veteran Nollywood actress, Kate Henshaw took to her verified twitter account to lament the fact that INEC has failed to upload the result from her polling unit to their portal as stipulated by the new electoral law. According to the actress, while the results for both the Senate and House of Representatives election results were successfully uploaded to the INEC portal in her polling unit, and when it was time to upload the result for the Presidential election then the INEC agents/officials came up with excuses, that the portal is congested.
“I don’t know the funny games @inecnigeria is playing. Results for House of Reps n Senate uploaded in my polling unit. E reach Presidential and story start that the portal is congested. We kuku know our results,” she tweeted moments ago.
Unfortunately, she’s not the only Nigerian who have complained about same issue, a lot of others have lamented same via social media platforms, including Arise TV journalist, Oseni Rufai, who wondered why INEC is delaying in uploading the election results to their online portal.
Even Labour Party chieftain and former Anambra State Governorship candidate, Valentine Ozigbo, is wondering why it is only the Presidential election results that is not being uploaded to the INEC portal as mandated by the electoral law where as results of the Senate and House of Reps election are being uploaded easily across different polling units. He went further to remind the electoral body that millions of Nigerian youths are watching every step taken by the commission.
Indeed Nigerians across the country trooped out in their large numbers to exercise their franchise as they look forward to electing credible leaders that will transform the country into a great nation. Unfortunately, we have started getting some saddening and unpleasant reports from several polling units, with many people accusing the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC of deliberately failing to do the needful in some of areas.
Therefore, INEC must quickly address this very issue of not uploading election results, mostly that of the presidential election to their portal, for it is capable of triggering unpleasant situations across the country. Also, INEC should have issued an official statement by now, to douse rising tensions over this very issue. Their continued silence is not good at a time like this.
Besides, the commission ought to have ensured that issues like this are reduced to an acceptable rate, because the commission was actually given enough time to prepare for this important election in Nigeria.
