NEWS
2023 Election Results not Affected by Technical Glitch – INEC
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says the glitch experienced in uploading the result of the 2023 presidential election to its results viewing portal, didn’t affect the credibility of the election.
The commission stated this in the comprehensive 2023 General Election Report released on Friday in Abuja, saying that the 2023 general election was generally peaceful and orderly nationwide.
It however, said that a key challenge that impacted on the public perception of the election and elicited widespread commentary was the failure to upload Polling Unit (PU) results of the presidential election to the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal in real-time at the close of the polls on Saturday Feb.
25, 2023.INEC described IReV portal as one of the most significant innovations introduced prior to the 2023 general election to promote the integrity and transparency of the electoral process, showing the images of the original Polling Unit result sheets as recorded in Form EC8A.
The system was first deployed during Nasarawa Central State Constituency by election in August 2020 and tested in 105 subsequent elections, including three off-cycle governorship election.
The report said that the system had tremendously improved public confidence in the integrity and transparency of the Commission’s result management process.
It however, said that challenge of uploading the PU presidential election results on the IReV after the presidential and National Assembly election on Feb. 25, 2023 was unique.
It stated that the commission began to receive reports around 4p. m., across the country that attempts to upload presidential election result sheets was failing.
“Following these reports, the Commission immediately engaged with its field officials for details in order to understand, and trace the origin, source, scale and magnitude of the problem across the result management ecosystem to devise appropriate solutions.
“In the troubleshooting process, it was established that there was no issue in uploading the PU result sheets of the Senate and House of Representatives elections through the Election Result Modules.
“However, there was a problem with uploading the presidential election results to the system,” it stated.
The report added that attempts to upload the results were generating internal server errors, which refer to a significant impairment that usually originate from within an application due to problems relating to configuration, permissions, or failure to create or access application resources correctly.
“Further interrogation of the Election Result Modules indicated that the system is encountering an unexpected configuration problem in mapping the presidential election results uploaded into the system to the participating Polling Units.
“Due to the complex, sensitive and critical nature of the systems and the real potential for malicious cyberattacks, the commission immediately put in place several strict security and audit control measures to prevent any unfettered or elevated access to the result upload system.
“In the process of resolving the challenge, it was discovered that the backend system of the IReV was able to query and detect the base States for uploading the PU result sheets.
“Based on the mapping of all Senatorial District and Federal Constituency elections to the respective 36 States of the Federation and the FCT as established in the database structure deployed within the system.”
“In configuring and mapping the election results for the presidential and NASS elections, the Commission created 470 election types consisting of one presidential constituency covering the entire country, 109 Senatorial Districts and 360 Federal Constituencies.
“Each Senatorial District and Federal Constituency election on the database was mapped to their respective States.
“However, the presidential election result is a single, countrywide constituency and therefore, does not belong to any one state.
“Consequently, while the uploads for the NASS elections succeeded as the application was able to identify the respective State and build the folder hierarchy for the results organisation process for the election, attempts to upload the presidential election results sheets, which does not belong to or mapped to any state on the database, failed”.
“Instead, it returned a HTTP server error response. This failure is attributable to the inability of the application to create and build a folder structure to organize the uploaded images of the result sheets of the presidential election.”
The report said that having identified and established the source of the problem, INEC quickly created and deployed “Hotfixes” which were software updates for fixing a bug or any vulnerabilities in a system.
It added that the deployed hotfixes eventually resolved the HTTP error on the system and the first presidential election result sheet was successfully uploaded at 8.55pm on the of Feb. 25, 2023.
“After the problem with the upload was resolved, the Commission noticed a high volume of uploads on the queue.
“All results that scanned but could not be uploaded due to the error were queued waiting to be automatically processed.
“Due to the large volume and high traffic from the queue, the system was running slower, even though it tried to scale up automatically to handle the unanticipated heavy traffic.
“The density of the traffic that slowed the uploads was one issue. Another was that the offline queue requires the BVAS devices to be switched-on and connected to the internet for the upload.”
“However, some of the POs had at the time left their PUs, and the devices had either been switched-off, or were out of internet coverage. Switched-off devices could not connect and upload the results sheets.
“The Commission had to reach out to the POs of affected areas to switch-on their systems and ensure internet connectivity for the uploads to continue.
“This accounted for the delay, with some of the results coming in the next day.”
It added that the glitch experienced in uploading the scanned images of PU presidential election result sheets on the election day was due to the inherent complexity within the system, which was difficult to anticipate and mitigate.
The report stated that thereafter, INEC made improvements on the IReV and taken additional steps to build more resilience.
It stated that INEC also undertook additional checks to ensure the stability and optimal operation and performance of the IReV portal.
It added that additional quality assurance checks are now done to complement the end-to-end testing of the entire result upload ecosystem before the conduct of any election.
“However, the glitch in the upload of the presidential result sheets to IReV did not affect the credibility of the election.
“Agents of political parties and security agencies were given copies of the polling unit results after they were announced in public.
“The results were also displayed at polling units for scrutiny by voters. Therefore, when they were eventually uploaded, it was easy to compare them with the copies displayed at polling units and given to the party agents and party officials, “ it stated.
It also said that the 2023 general election produced the most diverse outcome in recent Nigerian electoral history in terms of party representation in executive and legislative elections nationwide.
The report indicated that four political parties produced state governors, seven secured senatorial seats, eight won federal constituencies and nine in state seats.
It stated that a granular analysis of the results and performance of the leading parties across the country affirmed the diversity.
It added that performance of the four leading political parties – APC, LP, PDP and NNPP – in the presidential election across the six zones in respect of the required 25 per cent threshold to win a state in a presidential election as shown in table 9.6.
This, the report said, clearly attested to the integrity of both the process and outcome.
According to the table in the North Central; the APC scored North Central 1,760,993 votes representing 38.58 per cent, while the LP scored 1,415,557 votes representing 31.01 per cent.
Also within the geopolitical zone, PDP polled 1,162,087 votes representing 25.46 percent, while NNPP polled 60,056 votes representing 1.32 per cent.
The table also shown that in the North East APC polled 1,002,577 votes (29.16 per cent),LP-209,459 votes (6.09 per cent), PDP -1,741,846 votes (50.67 per cent), and NNP- 126,343 votes (3.67 per cent).
In the North West, APC scored 2,641,306 votes (39.54 per cent), LP-350,182 votes (5.24 per cent), PDP-2,329,540 votes (34.87 per cent), and NNPP-1,268,250 (18.98 per cent).
For South East it also indicated that APC polled 127,605 votes (5.71 per cent), LP-1,960,589 (87.79 per cent), PDP-91,198 (4.08 per cent) and NNPP-8,227 (0.37 per cent).
In the South-South APC garnered 799,957 votes (27.99 per cent) LP-1,210,675 votes (42.37 per cent), PDP -717,908 votes (25.12 per cent), while NNPP scored 17,167 votes (representing 0.60 per cent).
For the South West, the table also indicated that APC got 2,279,407 votes ( 53.59 per cent), LP- 849,423 votes (19.97 per cent) , PDP-941,941 votes (22.14 per cent), and NNPP 16,644 votes (0.39 per cent)(NAN
By Laide Akinboade, Abuja
The Academic Staff Union of Secondary Schools (ASUSS), Federal Capital Territory (FCT) Chapter, has dissociated itself from the indefinite strike declared by the Nigeria Union of Teachers (NUT), FCT Wing, directing secondary school teachers and education officers to report to their classrooms and proceed with their normal duties.
The union’s stance was made public in a press statement issued on Wednesday by its State Executive Council (SEC) following an emergency meeting to review the industrial action called by the NUT FCT Wing.
Rejecting the stay-at-home order, ASUSS argued that the academic destiny of students should not be compromised over industrial disputes, describing the strike action as premature and detrimental to educational stability in the territory.
Addressing the specific demands raised by the NUT, ASUSS offered counter-positions on the three primary issues driving the dispute.
ASUSS stated that the vacancy requirement remains a statutory provision of the Public Service Rules (PSR) governing establishment control and financial planning, emphasizing that altering career structures requires administrative dialogue rather than coercion.
The union clarified that the administrative framework for affected teachers has already been resolved, noting that the 2025 promotion process is set to run concurrently with the 2026 promotion cycle under the FCT Civil Service Commission, as outlined in circulars released in September 2026.
ASUSS maintained that the redeployment of education agency directors to classrooms falls within management’s statutory prerogative to maintain administrative order.
ASUSS further alleged that the strike action was calculated to disrupt the scheduled 2025/2026 promotion examinations for FCT Education Officers.
In its final directive, the union urged all eligible Education Officers to participate in the upcoming promotion examinations according to the published timetable, while calling on parents and guardians across the FCT to send their children to school, assuring them that academic activities will continue uninterrupted.
Furthermore, the ASUSS FCT Chapter issued specific directives to secondary school principals, vice-principals, and education officers:
“All secondary schools must remain fully open for academic and administrative activities without interruption.
“Ensure that all teachers report to their respective classrooms to execute their normal duties and teach students diligently.
“Disregard any directives or instructions from unauthorized bodies aimed at disrupting the academic calendar.
“Monitor attendance and ensure a safe, conducive learning environment for all students who are innocent victims of unnecessary industrial disruptions.”
A senior lecturer at the Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma in Edo State, Dr. Matthew Uwuigbe, has died under mysterious circumstances following an alleged sex romp with a sex worker in a hotel in Edo State.
It was learnt that the lecturer lodged in the hotel with the 21-year-old commercial sex worker identified as Angela Defa Jacob.
However, tragedy struck after the university don suddenly slumped and died during the encounter at the hotel located in Mosco area of Ekpoma, Esan West Local Government Area of Edo State.
The Edo State Police Public Relations Officer (PPRO), Eno Ikoedem, confirmed the incident on Tuesday.
She disclosed that three persons have been arrested in connection with the incident.
The command spokesperson said, “On October 5, 2026, at about 8 pm, the command received a report that Matthew Uwuigbe, a lecturer at Ambrose Alli University, Ekpoma, had lodged at a hotel in Ekpoma and engaged the services of a 21-year-old sex worker, Angela Defa Jacob.
“He subsequently sent the woman to purchase water for him, and upon her return, she found him lying dead in the room.”
She added that the hotel owner, the manager and the sex worker have been detained over the incident as investigation continues.
Ikoedem said the corpse of the victim has been deposited at the Oriaifo Memorial Hospital mortuary.
Yiaga Africa said 84 per cent of Nigerians intend to vote during the 2027 general elections, urging political parties to mobilise citizens to ensure they vote in spite of insecurity, distrust and vote buying threat to turnout.
Yiaga Africa Board Chairman, Hussein Abdul said this on Wednesday while unveiling its third National Voting Intentions Survey, based on interviews with 2,470 Nigerians across 36 states and FCT.
He said, Yiaga’s third voters’ intention study examines Nigerians’ readiness, motivations and expectations ahead of the 2027 general elections.
Abdul said insecurity, fears of election-related violence and low confidence in INEC, judiciary and security agencies could influence citizens’ decisions to vote.
He said the findings were not verdicts, but wake-up calls requiring INEC, security agencies, political parties, civil society organisations and other stakeholders to address identified concerns.
Abdul urged political parties to mobilise voters and strengthen civic education, saying low turnout undermines democracy in spite of more than 100 million registered voters.
The findings showed that 61 per cent of the respondents’ feared violence could prevent them from voting, rising to 78 per cent in the North-East, while 83 per cent wanted improved security.
The survey showed declining trust in INEC, with only 34 per cent confident of credible elections, while 63 per cent had little or no confidence in judicial resolution of electoral disputes.
It said 54 per cent disapproved of the President’s performance, while 71 per cent rated the economy poorly, with 49 per cent seeking leadership change as a voting motivation.
The report urged government and security agencies to strengthen election security, while INEC, judiciary, parties, media and civil society should improve credibility, voter confidence and combat vote buying.
Speaking on the report, Safiya Bichi, Head, Knowledge Management and Learning, Yiaga Africa, said: “Nigerians have not given up on democracy, but wanted votes to count.
Bichi said they see elections as their duty and they believe their votes can make a difference.
“What stands between that willingness and the ballot box is fear, distrust and money.
“Low turnout in Nigeria is a conversion problem, not an apathy problem and the responsibility for fixing it lies with the institutions and actors who control security, credibility and logistics.” Bichi said.
In a panel discussion featured at the launch, Ene Obi, Executive Director, Ene Obi Centre for Development said Nigeria would get it right and there would be more confidence if citizens vote and guard their votes.
The panel discussion was focused on ‘Intensions, Commitments and Pathways to Increasing Turnout’.
“We need to encourage citizens to go out and vote because this is their country, for civil society we are not worried about who wins but about the process, because the process must be fair and transparent.
“We must also take cognisance of those in the IDP camps and the areas they call ungovernable.”
Also speaking at the panel discussion, Chief Ezenwa Nwagwu, Executive Director Peering Advocacy and Advancement Center in Africa (PAACA), called on the media to highlight the positive side of the report of 84 per cent willing to vote.
He also called for investment in political reforms and not only electoral reforms, adding that the values and attitudes of politicians also affect election integrity.
Speaking on behalf of INEC, Victoria Efa-Mesi, Director Voter Education and Publicity called on Nigerians to do the right thing at all times, affirming that INEC was prepared for the 2027 elections.(NAN)
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