Tribunal: In Some instances, irrelevant objects were uploaded on the IRev -Archbishop Lucius Ugorji

According to TRIBUNE NEWSPAPER, The Catholic Bishops Conference of Nigeria (CBCN) has urged the Supreme Court to ensure impartiality in handling challenges to the 2023 general election outcomes. They emphasized the importance of upholding the law rather than catering to the desires of any political party. The CBCN expressed dissatisfaction with the Presidential Election Petition Court’s ruling, which stated that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) wasn’t obligated to transmit election results electronically, despite significant financial investments in systems like the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) and Result Viewing Portal (ReV).

During the 2023 Second Plenary Assembly of the CBCN, Archbishop Lucius Ugorji, the CBCN President, expressed a hope for a future where election results would be decisively settled at polling units rather than in the courts. He lamented that the 2023 elections did not meet the legitimate expectations and moral and legal standards of the people.

In his own words;

“In some instances, irrelevant objects were uploaded on the IRev. Contestants in the presidential election, who protested against the electoral process and the results hurriedly declared by the INEC Chairman, were advised to go to court, and they did.

“After hearing their petitions, the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) delivered its ruling in a marathon judgement on 6 September 2023. The five Justices of the Election Petition Court unanimously dismissed the petitions.

“According to them, they lacked merit. Despite the billions of Naira of tax-payers money appropriated for the provision of the BIVAS technology as a game-changer in our general elections, the Judges in their ruling tried, among other things, to suggest that it was wrong to expect INEC to keep its promise or obey the electoral regulation of transmitting election results electronically in real-time from the polling units.

The Archbishop pointed out that citizens’ confidence in the electoral process was undermined by numerous pitfalls and irregularities witnessed before, during, and after the elections. Additionally, he expressed disappointment that INEC failed to fulfill its promise of real-time uploading of presidential results.

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