Nigerians are criticising the Independent National Electoral Commission, saying it cannot match the efficiency displayed by the South African electoral commission which has so far done well in uploading results real time even as elections were underway.

INEC chair Mahmoud Yakubu, is again being attacked on social media particularly X after users saw the transparent manner in which the South African polls were conducted in that 90 per cent of electoral officers arrived polling centres early and results were quickly uploaded on the IEC website which eased the process of tracking collating them for every interested citizen.

In Nigeria last year, the majority of adhoc staff were late in arriving polling units late as citizens including the Director-General of World Trade Organisation Ngozi Okonjo Iweala then bitterly complained that electoral officials as of 11:23 a.m. had not arrived for elections slated to begin at 8:30a.m. 

The budgets for the two countries’ elections differed greatly: while South Africa’s IEC used R2.3 billion ($121.6 million) to conduct the polls, Nigeria’s INEC spent N355 billion (more than $200 million) on the 2023 elections, which were marred by irregularities, cases of malfunctioning BVAS, IREV website shutdown, accusations of election manipulation and inefficient electoral staff.

Assessing both South African polls and Nigerias’, conducted in 2023, Nigerians had harsh words for Mr Yakubu and INEC whom they accused of enabling electoral fraud.

On the day of Nigeria’s presidential polls, INEC’s result viewing portal, IREV, suffered a system collapse that hampered live transmission of presidential election results, which many critics said gave room for tampering and fraud.

Here are some of Nigerians’ reactions on X to the South African polls which were held on Saturday.

@Prof_aboki, “This is a live scoreboard of the ongoing South Africa general elections from their collation centre & there’s nothing like the useless INEC English, ‘Glitches’, no Irev problem, no network issues etc. Shame on you if you open your mouth to say Nigeria is giant of Africa.’’

@idyudofia, “South Africa teaching Nigeria how to conduct free and fair elections. But INEC chose to switch off the IREV portal and blamed it on “glitches”. Shame on you so called giant of Africa. Shame on you Mahmood Yakubu.’’

@Nithsmit, “Even with India population, they have never witnessed any glitch and yet INEC that God will punish their generation will budget more money but still sell election to highest bidder.’’ 

@Iam_Daposh, “National Collation Centre is looking like a shrine. To think that INEC spent over 315 billion naira organising the worst election ever in the history of Nigeria is shocking and shameful.’’

@florencethessy, “Chaiiiii, corruption has destroyed the country totally. Election results were not displayed electronically because of manipulations. Just look at the SA dashboard, you will feel happy about the country moving forward. Look at Naija own, chaii na sorry sight.

@sanniabdulaze11, “INEC Chairman and his team should visit South Africa INEC and see how they used technology to conduct elections without any corrupt technical glitches. Minimal elections crisis and the man is not a professor.

@Princeujay, “South Africa went this far to have a transparent election to elect credible leaders to fix their country in Nigeria. We are shutting the INEC server to select leaders to squander the country.’’

@otakerioghenero’, “This is how South Africa is teaching Nigeria how to conduct a free and fair election,    Shame on  Mahmood Yakubu .

If this man continues as INEC chairman is going to be a big slap to the face of democracy.

@edo_1122, “”Eyenec is a corrupt institution. It will be the joke of the century for opposition parties to go into the next general elections with the current system and individuals.’’

@EngrPrince1989, “”If this country is okay, INEC chairman should be in jail for wasting taxpayers money and lying to Nigerians.’’

@ChuksUnruly, “I don’t know the budget for the SA election but I’m willing to bet it cost less than the jamboree election that INEC did.’’