Why I Am Reluctant To Talk About How We Conducted Presidential Election – INEC Chief, Festus Okoye

As the outcome of the contentious February 25 presidential election continues to occupy the front burner of public debates, a top-ranking official of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Festus Okoye has come out to explain why he is not so comfortable analyzing how the nation’s electoral umpire conducted the polls.

While appearing in an interview on Channels Television’s ‘Sunrise Daily’ program on Friday morning, Okoye, who is the National Commissioner of INEC, was asked why the Commission failed to deliver on its lofty promises on the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and its Result Viewing Portal (IReV) during the presidential election.

In response, the INEC chief revealed that he is reluctant to talk about what transpired during the presidential election because there is already a litany of petitions in court regarding the outcome of the controversial polls.

He, however, disclosed that the Commission is having an internal review of the errors that affected some aspects of the February 25 election.

You know, I am very reluctant to start analyzing and evaluating the issues surrounding the conduct of the presidential election because some of the issues are already before the courts. Some petitions have been submitted before the presidential elections tribunal. However, after every election, the Commission engages in both internal and external valuations of the conduct of the election to know where it made mistakes and also to rectify those mistakes.

But let me say this; at a very reflective moment, at a very rational moment, at a time devoid of elections, we will come to realize that this election was the best ever conducted in the history of polls in this country. It would be unfair to base the entire gamut of the election on the upload of results from polling units to IReV.”