INEC Says Nigerian Media To Start Projecting Election Results Soon

As part of its effort to improve electoral process in the country, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has hinted that the Nigerian media will soon start projecting election results as with their counterparts in the United States.

It would be recalled that while the results of the November 4 US presidential election were yet to be officially declared, most foreign media outlet had projected Joe Biden, Democrat candidate, as the winner of the polls.

Mike Igini, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Akwa Ibom, who appeared on Channels Television’s Politics Today programme on Wednesday, said similar projection of election results will be made possible with the launch of the commission’s results portal.

Igini said the deployment of the public viewing portal eradicated electoral fraud in Edo and Ondo governorship election as Nigerians saw the result almost after the ballot was casted. 

He however, described the political elite as the biggest threat to the country, alleging that they are the ones attacking both the hardware and the software of INEC in order not to bring about credible elections in the country.

“I can confirm that INEC has made tremendous progress. The INEC of today is no longer the INEC of before because since 2011, the kind of elections that we have conducted had a remarkable departure from where we used to be even though we are not where we are supposed to be,” the Akwa Ibom REC said.

“The INEC public viewing portal is a new innovation to deal with the recurring issues of vote changes at the level of collation and that was why it was introduced to ensure that at the polling unit, once the result is published, it should be sent to the viewing portals so that Nigerians can see it.

“The way we are going, I am very sure not too far from now, Channels Television, all other stations, will be able to do what the CNN and other television stations do in America by making projections.

“In Edo and Ondo States governorship elections, even before INEC made the declarations, there was no tension in the country because people already had access, they could see the results, that is where we are going.

“But the problem we are having is that the political elite of our country are the greatest threat to our country. They are in disarray; they are the ones attacking both the hardware and the software of INEC in order not to bring about credible elections in our country.”