 Well the Independent National Electoral Commission, INXS, its laws did not make it compulsory to transmit the 2023 presidential election result electronically. The electoral body made a position known while responding to a petition that was filed before the presidential election petition court in the FCT by the Action People's Party, that's the APP challenging the outcome of the 2023 presidential election. However, the APP and its petition had challenged the or Progressive Congress APC candidate, Ashiraju Bola Ahmad, to nab his victory of the 20, the February 25th elections on the grounds that the electoral empire failed to transmit the result electronically. Barainek, through one of its lawyers, Abubakar Mamoud, SAIN, insisted that the presidential elections of 2023 was free, fair, insisting that the electoral act does not require the electronic transmission of result. The electoral body also denied the allegation that its officials tampered with the result in order to favor a particular political party or its candidate, and which was, some people described that there was a situation of excess voting. But then to make sense of all of this, we have a legal practitioner who joins us, is a former NBA chairman, Dr. Paul Ebiola. Thank you so much for being part of the show. Dr. Paul Ebiola, if you can hear me, please unmute your device. Oh, okay. Thank you very much. I appreciate your invitation to your station. Yes, please. So let's share your thoughts on this one. You have had the thoughts of INEC. They're saying that the transmission of result was not mandatory. The electronic act did not mandate that result will be transmitted electronically. And so it was more like they had options. However, what do you make of it, especially when the beavers and INEC, it was really a big deal. They constantly said results will be transmitted electronically. There will be real-time checking of results. And I think that was the reason why a lot of people went out to cast their votes. But what do you make of this recent statement by the umpire? Well, okay. Before I comment, I think it is proper to say from record that when a matter is before the court, in the legal parlor, we say that that matter is for Judith. When a matter is for Judith, it means that it is still before the court for trial. And so there is hardly anything much that we can say about such a matter. But down how we stand in, we could also express our opinion as people, not challenging what is in the court or not talking about what precisely is in the court. Now, answering your question directly. Well, it is rather unfortunate to hear this from the umpire that it is not mandatory to transmit results electronically. Well, I know that the Electoral Act, precisely section 148 of that act empowers the commission, of course, to make a regulation guidelines or manuals for the purpose of giving effect to the provisions of the act. And it was on that date that the commission made the regulations and manuals, of course, that guided the 2023 election. Now, if you look at section 50 down to 55 of that regulation, there is an aspect of it that talks about electronic transmission of the result. Now, if you look at section 50 precisely, that talks about the election coalition, result coalition at the polling unit level. At that polling unit level, it is a there are several responsibilities of the coalition officer, rather before the presiding officer. And when law says Shah, Shah means, you know, mandatory, something that is mandatory. The law section 50 paragraph 50 of that regulation talks about the registration area. That is the word coalition officer. Shah, the word Shah here means that it is mandatory that that must be done. Then it leaves quite a number of functions that it must carry out, one of which which is important to work with here, one of which is that electronically transmit or transfer the results directly to the next level of coalition as prescribed by the commission. Now, the commission came out to talk to us even before the election, loud and clear, trying to talk about the integrity of the election or the expected integrity of the election or the 2020, I mean the 2023 election. And it talks about election results being transmitted electronically. So of course, they, I make a several, in fact, like you say, that was the reason why everybody felt this summer round, we're going to have a credible election. We are going to have election of votes that will be counted or that will count. And people came up to exercise the franchise because they believe that their votes will count. That is because the commission had given us the impression, the impression that of course, results were going to be transmitted electronically. Now, and that is backed up by, you know, the law, the regulation made by the commission itself. At the fully unit level, it is expected that electronically, I mean, results be transmitted electronically, then at the local government level, it is also expected that at that level, election, if you look at the, if you go down to 53, regulation 53, where at the local government level, if it talks about the responsibility of the coalition officer at that level, and several of them, it says Sha, several of them, including of course, the aspect of, it says electronically transmit or transfer the results directly to the next level. And that is the state level. We're talking about the presidential election now, and the national assembly election. So all of this, if you go down up to 50 at the various levels of coalition, that is exactly what the law says. So to say at this point that it is on mandatory that results are to be transferred, where to be transmitted electronically, it is something that is, you know, the little thing of a commission as huge as the electoral commission that was the empire of this entire, you know, election. So like I say, it is the matter itself, Judith. I can only look at it on the surface as I am looking at it because these are clear, you know, provisions of the law. And these are not things that one will, at the end of the day, of course, will take their decisions after giving their views and interpretation to the various section, but it will not be completely correct to say that it is not mandatory that the results should be transmitted electronically. When your regulation has stated to, using the word Sha, and apart from that, you have come out to tell the world that elections or other results are going to be transmitted electronically. But then again, you can also take out the fact that also in that paragraph that you have made reference to that of 50 to 55, it talks about the regulation and guidelines for the conduct of the presidential election allows the commission to use alternate means of coalition. That's simple English, like you have, you can use any other means to collate this result. So again, do you think that INEC acts contrary to the laws or would probably just have lacunas in our laws? Well, if at this point we want to agree with INEC that it decided to use the alternative means, then coming to the, to tell the world that it was going to use or transmit the results electronically, then that is the fit of the first order. It means that the commission was distributed the entire country in the first place because if you know between the alternative methods and the electronic transmission of results, you know toward that one of them will be more credible. And that was why you came to the world and you were telling the whole world that the results are going to be transmitted electronically. And people jump at it. People believe that that was going to be the most credible method of transmitting a result. So if you use the alternative means or method, and you are now coming to capitalize on that to say that because the law does not mandate you to transmit electronically, that is the fit, the first order. And I don't think it, I mean this touches on the integrity of the commission itself. You asked me. But, but do you agree that, you know, that part of the rules and regulations or the guideline for the commission allows them to use an alternative method to collate results? Well, when you talk about alternative methods, I know methods. You see, it is not in my care. It is not as if there is an alternative method. These two methods were to be used simultaneously. And that means at this level, when it is collated at the local government, sorry, the polling unit level, when results are collated, of course, they will be collated in the various forms, ECA and so on, depending on the particular election. Now, these will be done at the end of it. It is expected that the results that have been entered in this form or in these forms will be transmitted electronically to the other level, to the other level of collation. That is the whole. So, one was to complement the other. So, when you tell me that you had an alternative method of collation of results and so you can get this one completely, it is not a totally correct. They were to be complementary to each other. That is to say, at the point where you collate manually. Yes, of course, manual collation was necessary and was needed. And so, when you do the manual collation, that is the reason why the result is smart or scan. It is at that point that it is expected that that is now transmitted. What was done manually is now transmitted electronically to the other end. So, I do not see any reason why anybody would say that because there is an alternative means of doing that or mode of doing that, then that means that the electronic transmission was to be jettisoned. That is not quite correct. Don't you think that we should be paying attention to the fact that laws actually leaves a lot of ambiguity? There are too many great errors in our rules, guidelines, you know, specifics. And it feels like those who are policy formulators or those who make these laws or those who are on the other side of the divide take advantage of all of these lacunas and then they begin to exploit the system. So, should again we be blaming INEC or should we be looking at the fact that the laws were not very specific as to whether we say it is compulsory that elections or result has to be collated via the beavers. That is what the empire said. Now, let me, I'll let you know that there is no law, no law in the entire world that is totally complete. That means that there is no time, even under the advanced countries, the developed democracies, you cannot expect that a particular document containing the laws of that land will explain everything or provide for everything. Completely everything. No. Look, some of these things are left for interpretation and that is why the costs are there. So, it is not expected that every damn thing that is required must be put in the law. Then you can imagine the size of the law of the constitution that we have or the size of the electoral act that we are going to have. So, a lot of other things are left for interpretation. So, you cannot actually say that they are deliberate, they are deliberate because if you want to be specific on all items, then of course we will not be able to. So, I think that the law has been sufficient provision unless somebody wants to be mischievous to say that this law is, I mean, there is a lacuna and so you capitalize on that lacuna. No. I think this is mischievous. It will simply be mischievous. Dr. Paul Ebiola, are we not saying that the fact that we constantly allow everything for interpretation by the court, is that not where we are today? Because we over time think that we don't have to include every detail. I mean, we are people that we have to be very specific. It's like saying, Messy, I want to see you and then I wake up to say, well, I didn't show up. So, you asked me, why didn't you show up? And I said, well, you are not specific as to when you want me to see me. There was no detail. So, the point again is, is it not that we, I mean, there's no time for all of that. We just have to move away. But my concern here is where we are today as a people and as a nation, is it because we have allowed everything to interpretation? And usually the interpretation hasn't yielded any positive result. We understand that you can't add all of the details, but is it not rather important that we are very detailed, knowing the kind of people that we are, the kind of society that's peculiar to us, that we're very detailed about everything? So, on the one hand, the empire tells us that we're going to have an elections where result will be transmitted by the beavers. The beavers were really the selling point for the 2023 elections. And then, you know, it fell short of its expectation with all of the conviction, with all of the promises in the trials that we had. Then you're also having the empire saying it was not mandatory that we transmit the result with the beavers because the guidelines and the laws actually gives us, you know, an alternative. And so we decided to use our discretion. Dr. Paula Biala, we will have this conversation some other time and thank you so much for being part of the show. I know you want to say something, but just less than a minute. Yes, maybe my last, this will certainly amount to what we say, what we call approbation and approbation on the part of the commission. Because if you have come out to claim that you are going to be an election that will be almost impeccable, then at this point, you're coming out to put up, you know, this kind of defense. Then it is approbation and approbation. Well, if so, it's okay. It will be tested in the court. The courts, I mean, yes, all of these matters are before the court. And at the end of the day, we're hearing various interpretations that will be given. Thank you so much. Thank you very much. Yes, please. Dr. Paula Biala is a former NBA chairman. Cross River State is also a legal practitioner and an academic director. We do appreciate your time. And that's the size of our conversation this morning on the show. We take a break to join the newsroom at nine o'clock. For the news brief, please stay with us. Now, if you missed out on any part of the conversation from seven o'clock up until now, we ask that you follow us on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, and do subscribe to our YouTube channel to be part of the show. We're at Plus TV Africa and Plus TV Africa Lifestyle. My name is Messier Bukbo. Have a great morning.