The Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, has urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to publish a clear roadmap showing how election results move from polling units to final declarations.
Itodo said greater transparency in the results management process would help citizens understand, monitor and protect the integrity of elections, particularly ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Speaking during an interview on ARISE News on Friday, he said Nigerians need to know the complete journey of election results from the point of voting to the stage where winners are announced.
“The public needs to understand what is the journey of results from the polling units to when declarations are made.
”And only when they understand that can they monitor and provide the oversight that is required to protect their votes, ” he said.
The Yiaga Africa boss explained that although Section 60(3) of the Electoral Act requires the transmission of results to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IREV), many Nigerians remain unaware of the processes that occur before results appear on the platform.
According to him, results from polling units do not automatically appear on IREV immediately after voting ends, as they first undergo a validation process.
“When polling is concluded on election day and the hard copy result sheets are completed, the results do not hit the IREV automatically.
”There is a validation process that takes place at the back end before those results make it to the IREV, ” he added.
Itodo noted that each polling unit now has three forms of result records: the physical result sheet, the electronic EC8A recorded on the BVAS device, and the scanned result sheet uploaded to IREV.
He raised concerns about how discrepancies among the three records would be handled.
“The big question is what happens if there is a discrepancy between these three different result tracks.
”We do not know which one will be used to resolve this, ” he said.
He called on INEC to make more collation documents publicly available, including EC8B forms used at ward and local government levels, to enable citizens to track results throughout the entire collation process.
“Why don’t we have the EC8Bs, which is the result collation form for the ward and the local government collation?
”Because the public needs to know and follow the journey of the results from the polling unit to the ward and to the local government level, ” he said.
Itodo also demanded more openness about INEC’s technology systems, particularly the validation process and safeguards designed to protect election results.
“If you say validation, who is validating? What has been validated? What happens if there’s a discrepancy?
”The back end must have an audit trail. People should have access to those audit trails, ” added.
He maintained that improved transparency would strengthen public trust and allow citizens to play a more active role in safeguarding Nigeria’s electoral process.
