TMG faults INEC over failure to upload results

The Transition Monitoring Group (TMG) has knocked the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC for its failure to follow the law in uploading results after the election.

The group said that such failure from INEC is one of the challenges of the 2023 general elections.

Making this known was the Chairman of TMG, Auwal Musa while speaking on Tuesday during the special 2023 Elections programme on Vanguard TV, Observers’ Report.

Musa, however, commended INEC over the functionality of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS), noting it eliminated grand rigging that had blighted previous elections in the country.

The TMG boss also commended the security performance during the Saturday’s election, describing it as an improvement from what used to be.

He said, “The Transform Monitoring Group (EMG) has deployed BVAS across the country and we are getting reports from our observers, and the report so far gotten was that many Nigerians came out and organized themselves in an orderly manner to participate.

“We also have seen some level of equipment from security agents. In the past, the idea was that politicians or the ruling party in their respective state control security, we haven’t seen such incident happen which means that was a kind of improvement in security neutrality.

“We have also seen that despite the challenges of the BVAS, it has actually eliminated grand rigging and thumbprinting in many places, because in the past, if you look at 2015, 2019, you will see that the monumental rigging that happened, has not happened in that scale in this election courtesy of BVAS.

“Despite the challenges that the election came with which is the failure of INEC to comply with the law, which is to say the upload of results after the election; that has created tension, and that has led a lot of people to question the integrity of the whole process. Overall, improvements can be made if we have the political commitment to address those lapses highlighted.”

Musa also recommended that INEC improve logistics, equip ad-hoc staff to be competent and avoid having questionable characters as electoral officers. Vanguard