Featured, Politics
…says election fails integrity test
By Anthony Isibor
YIAGA Africa, a non-profit civic hub of change makers committed to promoting democratic governance, human rights and civic engagement, says that disparities between the official results released by INEC and Yiaga Africa’s PRVT estimates indicate manipulation of results during the collation process.
A statement signed on Monday by Samson Itodo, Executive Director, Yiaga Africa and Aisha Abdullahi, Chair of the 2024 Edo Election Mission, explained that these inconsistencies between INEC’s announced result and its PRVT estimates indicate that the results were altered at the level of collation.
The non-profit civic hub of change makers noted that its statistical analysis shows inconsistencies in the official results announced by INEC.
This conclusion is based on reports from 287 of 300 (96%) sampled polling units, noting that its estimates are based on official results announced at the polling unit, from a representative random sample of polling units.
“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.
“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 undermined the credibility of the election results.
“Inconsistencies in the officially announced results based on reports received from the sampled polling units, Yiaga Africa can project the expected vote shares for each party within a narrow margin. However, Yiaga Africa is only able to verify the election outcome if it falls within its estimated margins.
“If the official results do not fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated ranges, then the results may 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.
“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.” the statement said.
Yiaga Africa, however, commended INEC for the optimal functioning of the BVAS machines despite some isolated incidents of inadequate election materials.
It also commended INEC for consistently applying its guidelines in managing the accreditation and voting process in a significant number of polling units. In this regard, it considered the integrity of accreditation, voting, counting and collation of results.
It said that 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.”
A.I
Sept. 24, 2024
Tags: Aisha Abdullahi INEC Samson Itodo YIAGA Africa
