He said that the commission plans to transmit real-time poll results from 176,846 polling units across the country in 2023.

According to him, the commission has completed a successful pilot on real-time e-transmission of poll results, and the agency expects to achieve seamless transmission of poll results across the country by 2023.

Yakubu stated this at a strategic interactive meeting with journalists in Lagos on Friday, amid concerns in some quarters about the country’s readiness for real-time e-transmission of poll results.

The ruling All Progressives Congress recently expressed doubts about the commission’s ability to transmit poll results in areas with poor network coverage and intermittent power supply.

During his speech, the INEC chair stated that the commission was already in contact with the Nigerian Telecommunications Commission to address the situation surrounding some telecommunications blind spots in the country.

Yakubu said, “On the issue of access to connectivity for the transmission of poll results, we are in touch with the Nigerian Communications Commission-the regulator of the telecoms industry in the country- and we have already identified the blind spots. In fact, on Tuesday (tomorrow) at 11am, we are going to meet with the NCC and the chief executives of the four mobile network operators to further discuss this issue of access to connectivity.

“For now, we will find a way of dealing with this question of blind spots, working with mobile network operators-the four of them-MTN, Glo, 9Mobile and Airtel.  These are the four operators of the wireless network across the country. So, we are working with them, we have identified the blind spots and we will also find a solution to the question of the blind spot so that we can transmit from every part of the country in real-time.

He further explained, “Let me use this opportunity to say that this is not the first time we are transmitting poll results in real-time from the polling units.  We started this on August 8, 2020, and since then, we have conducted off-cycle and bye-elections for 105 constituencies; and we have transmitted from all parts of the country.

We have transmitted from rural areas in Borno, Zamfara, Ondo (Ilaje) and Ijaw lands in the middle Atlantic Ocean; and we have no issues with the transmission of these results. In this coming poll, we are going to transmit from 176,846 locations across the country-these are polling units nationwide. We are satisfied with the pilots that we have conducted on this.”

The commission chair also explained that INEC auditors had audited the accounts of political parties for the past years, assuring that the results would be made known very soon.

On whether the agency is ready for a possible presidential poll run-off, the INEC chair said the commission had included such possibilities in its plan.

He said the Central Bank of Nigeria would still handle the ballot papers and results sheets, which the commission would print”.