INEC Only Has Exclusive Power To Declare Results – Agbakoba

A Senior Advocate of Nigeria (SAN), Olisa Agbakoba, has stated that Nigerians and journalists have the right to publish election results that are already in the public domain.

Agbakoba argued that the Independent National Electoral Commission’s (INEC) exclusive authority to declare election results does not stop other people from publishing results obtained through the electoral process.

Naija News reports that Agbakoba spoke during an interview on Arise Television on Wednesday.

He said, “Already in 1984, Mr Justice Candid Johnson, in the case concerning NUJ and FEDECO, affirmed the right to publish results. I think the confusion is that we confuse declaration of results. That’s the only power that INEC has exclusively: to declare the results.

“But as you know, the electoral record in terms of voting goes from the polling unit to the ward, to the local government, to the state, to the national collation, to the final announcement. That is a process. If I’m standing at the polling unit and the presiding officer reads the results, he’s read it. I can broadcast it.

“He’s read it, and I can tell you that political parties are going to set up AI processes whereby they’ll be able to pick from the IReV the results. Because the IReV is simply a compilation of all the results coming from the polling units.

“So this time, I predict that there will be speed. The question is whether I’m holding all the results in my hand, authenticated. Because Section 124 warns that if you publish fake results, in fact, the punishment for publishing fake results is in the Act.

“So that tells you that if the Act anticipates that you publish a fake result, it also means that you can publish the result. The real confusion is the doctrinal problem of what I can do, which is simply declare the results.

“The fact that I have announced the result doesn’t mean that that is the result. Remember that even the famous 1993 free and fair election in Nigeria, there was no declaration. It was on the board that people saw the results that had been written. And from there, it was projected that there would be an award.

“So there’s no question that the media particularly are entitled to publish results. In any event, the matter has been decided. It has not been appealed. And the case is NUJ versus FEDECO, now INEC. And I think that is the decision that binds everybody, including INEC.”