2027: Journalists can publish election results – Agbakoba fires warning to INEC

Former NBA President Olisa Agbakoba has warned Nigeria's Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) that journalists have the legal right to publish election results. According to Agbakoba, INEC alone has the authority to formally declare election outcomes. During an interview on Arise Television's Morning Show, Agbakoba cited a 1984 judgment by Justice Cante Johnson, stating that journalists have a right to publish results.

He explained that election results progress from polling units to various administrative levels before reaching the national collation centre for final announcement. Agbakoba predicted that political parties might use AI systems to retrieve and process data from INEC's Result Viewing Portal (IReV) during the 2027 elections. However, he stressed that accuracy must be matched with speed in reporting and emphasized that results should be authenticated before publication.

Citing Section 124 of the Electoral Act, Agbakoba argued that publishing election results is legal, but not declaring them as the winner. He referenced the 1993 presidential election, where publicly displayed results informed projections, despite the lack of a final declaration. Agbakoba maintained that the binding judgment in the NUJ versus FEDECO (now INEC) case would continue to apply, as it had not been appealed.