The Presidential Election Petitions Tribunal (PEPT) is set to deliver judgement today. Security is already beefed up ahead of the verdict.
Nigerians from all walks of life are waiting eagerly to witness the televised live proceedings from the Tribunal venue at the Court of Appeal in Abuja, the nation’s capital.
Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP), and the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) are challenging President Bola Tinubu’s declaration as the winner of the 2023 general elections.
According to the PEPT, INEC regulations and the Electoral Act give room for manual collation of results. It said electronic transmission is optional at best.
3:08 pm: The court added that the only device that must be used by INEC for elections is the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS)
It noted that there’s no regulation showing BVAS must be used to electronically transmit results from polling units.
On the issue of substantial non-compliance with the provisions of the law, especially with regard to non-transmission of result sheets to INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), the court holds that there is no law that says INEC must transfer or transmit the results of the election from the polling units electronically.
The law simply empowers INEC to decide the means of collation of results of elections, the court argued.
