By Shola Abayomi.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has confirmed the existence of its server, although it quickly added that the said server was not deployed during the general election which held between February and March, this year.
According to INEC National Commissioner, Solomon Soyebi, the electoral body only transmitted results electronically during the 2018 Osun and Anambra governorship elections and not the 2019 general election.
Mr Soyebi disclosed that the commission jettisoned the idea of electronic transmission of results to a central server because of the late release of INEC’s budget for the 2019 election, among other reasons.
“We piloted the use of transmission of election results electronically in Sokoto, in Anambra, even in Osun. What happened was that we were trying to pilot to see the desirability of such technology in our electoral process.
“First, our budget came out very late, there was also issue (with) the Electoral Act. For these and some other reasons, the Commission did not adopt that option. 2019 elections were conducted according to Law.
“We used the Constitution of the Federal Republic, we used the Electoral Act and our guidelines for 2019 elections. If you look at the three instruments carefully, the issue of server was not highlighted.
“Once in a while, you will see an experiment going on but we have to pilot it before we will deploy wholesale for election. We did not use it because of circumstances beyond the control of the Commission,” he said.