As Nigerians are gearing up for the presidential and National Assembly elections, which were scheduled to hold on Saturday, February 25, 2023, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has encouraged them to make use of the election portal to monitor results.
BizWatch Nigeria understands that the INEC Result Viewing portal (IReV) allows citizens to view copies of election results as compiled and recorded at polling units upon the conclusion of voting. The amended Electoral Act, which was signed into law in February 2022 by President Muhammadu Buhari, allows INEC to introduce some innovations to strengthen the conduct of elections in Nigeria.
“As I have said repeatedly, the commission’s allegiance is to Nigeria. Our loyalty is to Nigerians who want free, fair, credible, and verifiable elections supported by technology, which guarantees transparent accreditation and upload of polling unit results for citizens to view in real-time on election day,” said Mahmood Yakubu, INEC’s chairman.
A statement from the electoral umpire explained that the portal is to ensure transparency in the electoral process, which would help to ensure that the will of the people is accurately reflected.
“A transparent election process helps to ensure that the will of the people is accurately reflected. This is why the commission has resolved to use the IReV portal to upload the polling unit results in real-time for the #NigeriaDecides2023 election,” the electoral body said.
To access the portal, first-time users need to go to http://inecelectionresults.ng where they are required to create an account in very few steps. A code is sent to the user’s email, which they are expected to copy and put in a box. Once the right code is supplied, the account is created. It is important to always use passwords that can be remembered.
Once the user logs in, they have access to results from previous elections like the Ekiti, Osun, and the FCT Area council election.
“Click on the election of your interest and you select the state, the LGA, the ward, and the polling unit. It is the polling unit results that are uploaded. The idea is you can access and view results from every part of the country depending on the state of your interest. Why I say it is important to create the account now is because we don’t want you to experience difficulty creating an account on election day, although INEC has told us that the platform has the capacity to manage about 100 million hits on that day,” said a spokesperson for INEC.
