LABOUR PARTY'S LAWSUIT IS DISMISSED BY THE COURT

Peter Obi

The Labour Party's lawsuit is dismissed by the court, which rules that "only INEC can determine the mode of collating and transmitting election results."

A Federal High Court in Abuja has declared that only the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has the legal authority to decide how election results are compiled and transmitted.

Before dismissing the suit, Justice Nwite determined that manually collating and transferring election results in the 2023 general elections is in accordance with the relevant sections of the Election Act, 2022.

The ruling was based on the Labour Party's (LP) suit FHC/ABJ/CS/ 1454/2022, in which INEC was the sole defendant.

LP had asked the court to rule that INEC has no authority to adopt a manual technique other than the electronic method specified in the Electoral Act of 2022.

The Labour Party requested that the court issue an order directing INEC to comply with the Electoral Act of 2022 regarding electronic transmission of results in the upcoming general election.

The judge said: "From the argument of the learned plaintiff's counsel, I am of the humble opinion that the bone of contention or the sections that seeks for interpretation are actually sections 50(2) 60(5) and 62(2) of the Electoral Act, 2422.

"Section 47(2) as cited by the learned counsel to the plaintiff only deals with accreditation of voters using a Smart Card Reader, but not collation or transmission of result as postulated by the learned counsel," the judge held.

According to Justice Nwite, Section 60(5) of the Electoral Act of 2022 authorizes the transmission of election results, including the total number of accredited voters from the polling unit.

He pointed out that Section 62(2) of the same Act calls for the compilation, maintenance, and ongoing updating of the register of election results as a separate database for all polling unit results compiled in all elections conducted by the commission.