Adewole Adebayo, presidential candidate of the Social
Democratic Party (SDP) in the 2023 elections, says issues around the result
viewing portal may not be relevant to the presidential election petition
tribunal.
Ahead of the 2023 polls, the IReV portal was part of the
technologies introduced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)
to improve the transparency of the electoral process.
The commission had assured that polling unit results would
be uploaded to the portal in real-time — but during the presidential election
which was held on February 25, the portal was inactive for some time after the
conclusion of the election.
The development sparked controversy over the outcome of the
presidential election.
Adebayo shared his take on the issue while speaking on
90MinutesAfrica, a show hosted by Rudolf Okonkwo.
The SDP standard bearer said the debate on the IReV may be
considered inconsequential by the supreme court.
He said many of the promises made by INEC, including
uploading the presidential election results to the IReV in real-time, are not
recognised by law and thus not legally binding.
“The supreme court is
interested in the information inside the BVAS, the information in the voter’s
register, and the actual result sheets. The issues of uploading results to IReV
and other promises made by INEC are mostly not relevant in the determination of
whether an election was properly conducted or not,” he said.
The SDP candidate said the allegation that President-elect
Bola Tinubu was convicted in the US cannot hold water in court.
“The Nigerian constitution limits any conviction to the last
ten years,” he said.
“So if it happened thirty years ago, though it is still
morally reprehensible if the conviction actually happened, you can only use it
to campaign against the person, but you [can]not bring it to the courts because
they are constitutionally barred from talking about it after ten years.”
Adebayo also spoke on the issue of the alleged double
nomination of Vice-President-elect Kashim Shettima, saying it may not be
considered to be a “serious issue” in court.
“Primary election is not done for the position of running
mate,” he said.
“So even if Shettima submitted his withdrawal from the
senatorial race late, the important thing is that on the day of the election,
while he was running as VP, somebody else was contesting as a senator in his
constituency.”
Advertise on NigerianEye.com to reach thousands of our daily users
No comments
Post a Comment
Kindly drop a comment below.
(Comments are moderated. Clean comments will be approved immediately)
Advert Enquires - Reach out to us at NigerianEye@gmail.com