THE Presidential Campaign Council (PCC) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) says the Electoral Act does not mandate the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to transmit the election results electronically.

The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results; instead, the decision was at INEC’s discretion, according to the campaign council.

The special adviser on media and communications at the PCC, Dele Alake, said the complaint of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Labour Party (LP) had no legal standing.

INEC’s failure to upload poll results in real-time on the Result Viewing (IReV) portal was a major controversy during the collation of presidential election results at the national collation centre in Abuja.

The LP and PDP, two major contenders in the presidential race, accused the electoral body of tainting the election outcome with its alleged failure to transmit the results from polling units.

In responding, the APC campaign council held a press conference in Abuja on Friday, March 3.

At the media briefing, Alake said the provision to transmit results was not mandatory, noting that election outcome had nothing to do with the transmission of election results.

He said, “Section 60, sub-section 2 of the Act deals with the transmission of results and is at the discretion of INEC. The Act does not contain any mandatory provision regarding the transmission of results.

“In any case, the process of transmitting results from polling units, whether real-time, two days later or at any time, cannot change the results that have been announced.”

He also indicated that the claim that INEC did not use the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was false as “those who voted across Nigeria, including Atiku and Obi, were accredited.”

He described attempts by the parties to seek redress in court as an acceptable development.

“The initial knee-jerk and hothead call for anarchy by their proxies was ill-advised and would not serve any noble cause. It is good to know that reason has prevailed.

“We welcome the decision by the PDP, the LP and also the NNPP candidates to test their claims, as ridiculous as they are, in the court of law as provided for by the Constitution,’’ Alake said.