Below are excerpts of what the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential and vice presidential candidates, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Senator Kashim Ibrahim Shettima, respectively, told the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) about electronic transmission of results.
The piece was a response of the petition filed at the Presidential Election Petition Tribunal by Mr. Peter Gregory Obi and his Labour Party (LP).
Read:
The petitioners gave no evidence that the results which were eventually computed at the ward collation center for the respective polling units were different from what was delivered to the ward collation center from the polling unit; or that the results collated at the local government collation centers were different from the ones submitted from the respective wards; or that the results collated at the respective State collation centers were different from the ones submitted from the respective local government collation centers; or finally, that the results collated at the national collation center were different from the ones submitted from the respective State collation centers.
We urge the court to observe that the petitioners have harped on electronic transmission of results as though the same Regulations did not contemplate manual transfer.
We submit that right from the polling unit to the national collation center, there are ample provisions for the transfer of results through the manual process, hence the use of the phrases “Electronically transmit” or “transfer- as employed in paragraphs 38 and 50 of the Regulations and “transmit” or “transfer as used under paragraph 54(xii) of the Regulations. A clear understanding of the distinction between the words “transmit” and “transfer”, will definitely operate to exfoliate the petitioners’ misgivings.
According to the Merriam Webster Dictionary, “transmit” connotes “to cause (something such as light or force to pass or be conveyed through space or a medium and to send out (a signal) either by radio waves or over a wire.”
The Collins Dictionary puts it in a much clearer form when it states that “When radio and television programmes, computer data, or other electronic messages are transmitted, they are sent from one place to another, using wires, radio waves, or satellites.”
On the other hand, however, “transfer” is defined by these same dictionaries as “to move to a different place, region, or situation” and “to convey or remove from one place, person, etc., to another.” The distinctions are very clear to the effect that while “transmit” connotes electronic activities, “transfer” infers a physical activity.
Our clear submission is that all the provisions of the Regulations created the alternative between electronic transmission and transfer, with the use of the article “or”. For instance, paragraph 38(i), which deals with movement from the polling unit states that “on completion of all the Polling Unit voting and results procedures, the Presiding Officer shall:
(i) Electronically transmit or transfer the result of the Polling Unit, direct to the collation system as prescribed by the Commission.” Paragraph 50(xx) provides that “the Registration Area/Ward Collation Officer shall: Electronically transmit or transfer the result directly to the next level of collation as prescribed by the Commission.”
Paragraph 53(xii) provides that “the Local Government/Area Council Collation Officer for the Presidential Election shall Electronically transmit or transfer the result directly to the next level of collation, as prescribed by the Commission.”
To further demonstrate our position on the etymological implication of the words and to corroborate the fact that “electronic” is disjunctively applicable only to “transmit”, we refer to paragraph 54(xii) which completely dispenses with the use of “electronically”, by simply providing that “the State/FCT Collation Officer for the Presidential election shall: Transmit or transfer the result directly to the next level of collation as prescribed by the Commission.”
For each of the above level of collation, provisions are clearly made for taking of original copy of the forms EC8A, 8B, 8C and 8D, respectively, from the different level of collation to the upper level, in a tamper-evident/tamper-proof envelop, for upward transfer in the company of police officers and party agents. See also, paragraph 3.4.5 of the Manual.
In fact, the first step the ward collation officer is to take, by virtue of paragraph 4.2.2 of the Manual, is to “take delivery of the original copies of Forms EC8A, EC8A(I), and EC8A(11) for the Presidential Election”, while the tenth step is for him to “Collate the votes entered in Forms EC8A, EC8A(I) and EC8A(H), for the Presidential Election.”
Not done yet, paragraph 92 of the Regulations, further provides that “at every level of collation, where the INEC copy of collated results from the immediate lower level of collation exists, it shall be adopted for collation. Paragraph 93 tree goes further to provide for the only circumstance where electronic copy will become relevant being where there is no hard copy of collated result.
From this paragraph. it is clear that insofar as the Regulations and Guidelines are concerned, the relevance of electronic transmission in the order of things, are extremely tertiary in ranking, and that the Regulations and Guidelines, clearly contemplate its absence, where it directs a fall back on hard copies of collated results already given to the Nigeria Police or agents of political parties, where the ones from the immediate lower level of collation whether from the PO or the IREV, do not exist.
So, from the above provision of the Regulations and Guidelines, before recourse will be made to the electronically transmitted result or results from the IREV portal, the INEC hardcopy of collated results from the immediate lower level of collation must first have been confirmed to be non-existent.
It is important to indicate that none of the witnesses fielded by the petitioners have alleged that this was the case at any level of collation centers. In any event, the absence of the electronically transmitted results or results from the IREV portal does not necessarily create a brick wall in the absence of INEC hardcopy of collated results.
The same paragraph creates a solution, to the effect that the collation officer may resort to the duplicate hardcopies issued by INEC to the police and the party agents.
To now further accentuate the place of the hardcopy of the electoral forms, particularly, the Forms EC8As, which the petitioners’ witnesses all agree were delivered to the ward collation center, paragraph 91(i) of the Regulations insists that Forms EC8A and EC60E “are the building blocks for any collation of results.”
An aggregation of these clearly shows that it is either the petitioners have, with all respect, naively overestimated the electronically transmitted results, or they have simply decided to throw tantrums as a result of their frustration at the polls.
Hence, assuming without conceding that the non-transmission through electronic means, is at all, a non-compliance, the obligation of the petitioners would still remain to answer the question, “how then has the non-transmission affected the result of the election?”
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