The Labour Party’s legal action against the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has been dismissed. A Federal High Court decision ordering INEC to electronically upload the results of the governorship and state assembly elections from the polling places directly to the Results Viewing Portal (IReV) has been overturned by the Court of Appeal, Lagos division.
The law grants INEC very broad discretionary powers to choose how it transmits or transfers election results, according to a three-person panel made up of Justices Abubakar Umar, Olukayode Bada, and Onyekachi Otisi. The suit brought by the LP before the lower court was characterised as an abuse of court procedure in the judgement issued by the panel on July 19 and obtained by The Guardian on Monday, August 7, 2023.
The court ruled that INEC has “very wide discretionary powers” under Sections 50(2) and 60(5) to choose how to transmit or transfer election results, noting that such transmission is entirely up to the electoral body and is not required. In its ruling, the Court of Appeal noted that despite being served, the LP, its governorship candidate, and all the other respondents failed to submit any brief to join arguments against the governing All Progressives Congress (APC).
The appeals court declared that it had found merit in the appeal and that the APC had won because of this.
