A civil society group, Yiaga Africa, has said that Saturday’s Edo State governorship election failed the integrity test.
It spoke in a statement on Monday on the poll that saw the All Progressives Congress candidate, Monday Okpebholo, declared winner.
The statement, signed by its Chair of the 2024 Edo Election Mission, Dr. Aisha Abdullahi, and its Executive Director, Samson Itodo, said: “While key processes such as accreditation, voting, counting, and recording of results at the polling unit substantially complied with procedures, the results collation process was compromised by the actions of some biased INEC officials in connivance with other actors. This manipulation severely undermines the overall integrity of the election.”
Yiaga Africa said it deployed the Process and Results Verification for Transparency methodology to observe the Edo State governorship election, adding that the method involved 300 stationary and 25 roving observers covering a representative sample of polling units across all 18 Local Government Areas.
The group said it recorded incidents of results manipulation and disruptions during ward and local government collation in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor and Oredo LGAs, including intimidation of INEC officials, observers and party agents and the collation of results.
It said: “Yiaga Africa’s estimates are based on official results announced at the polling unit, from a representative random sample of polling units. As highlighted in our pre-election report, Yiaga Africa will amongst other factors consider the quality of election day processes in assessing whether the 2024 Edo governorship satisfies the electoral integrity test. In this regard, Yiaga Africa considered the integrity of accreditation, voting, counting, and collation of results.
“INEC consistently applied its guidelines in managing the accreditation and voting process in a significant number of polling units. Despite some isolated incidents, the BVAS machines functioned optimally, and all voters in the queue by 2:30pm were allowed to vote, despite the late opening of polls. The polling officials uploaded polling unit results on the IReV in a timely manner, making it possible for citizens to access polling unit level results.
“However, the incidents of results manipulation and disruptions during ward and local government collation in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor and Oredo LGAs, including intimidation of INEC officials, observers and party agents and the collation of results contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines, severely undermine the credibility of the election results.”
Based on reports received from the sampled polling units, Yiaga Africa said it can project the expected vote shares for each party within a narrow margin.
However, it said it is only able to verify the election outcome if it falls within its estimated margins.
It added: “If the official results do not fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated ranges, then the results may it said, have been manipulated.
“According to INEC, the All Progressive Congress (APC) received 51.1% of the votes, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) 43.3% of the votes, and the Labor Party garnered 4.0% of the votes. Based on reports from 287 of 300 (96%) sampled polling units, Yiaga Africa’s statistical analysis shows inconsistencies in the official results announced by INEC. For instance, the official results announced by INEC for APC in Oredo and Egor, LGAs fall outside the PRVT estimate. In Esan West LGA, the official results for PDP fall outside the PRVT estimates. Also, in Oredo LGA, the official results as announced for LP fall outside the PRVT estimates. These inconsistencies with Yiaga Africa’s PRVT estimates indicate that the results were altered at the level of collation.
“The disparities between the official results released by INEC and Yiaga Africa’s PRVT estimates indicate manipulation of results during the collation process. Yiaga Africa strongly condemns the actions of some biased INEC officials who altered figures during collation including the actions of some security officials who interfered with the collation process. Yiaga Africa notes that the cases of disruption in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor, and Oredo LGAs in the course of collation created opportunities for election manipulation, raising significant concerns about the credibility and integrity of the results collation process.”
Yiaga Africa, however, said INEC’s turnout and rejected ballots for the 18 LGAs released are consistent with its WTV PRVT estimates.
It said: “Yiaga Africa is able to estimate that turnout is between 20.9% and 24.1% (22.5% ± 1.6%), while INEC’s official result is 22.4%. Similarly, Yiaga Africa estimates for rejected ballots are between 2.2% and 3.2% (2.7% ± 0.5%).”
