Yiaga Africa, one of the accredited observers of Saturday’s off-cycle governorship election in Edo State, has said the poll failed integrity test, as there was widespread manipulation of results.
This is contained in the post-election statement of the organisation on the governorship election, co-signed by Dr. Aisha Abdullahi, Chair of the 2024 Edo Election Mission, and Samson Itodo, Executive Director, Yiaga Africa.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election.
The returning officer, Prof. Faruk Adamu Kuta, announced that the APC candidate secured 291,667 votes, defeating his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who had 247,274 votes and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) with 22,763 votes.
But Yiaga Africa said it deployed the Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) methodology for the election, involving 300 stationary and 25 roving observers, covering a representative sample of polling units (PUs) across all 18 LGAs, and found lapses.
“The PRVT enables Yiaga Africa to independently assess the quality of Election Day processes and verify the accuracy of the official election results as announced by INEC. Yiaga Africa observers also deployed to the State and LGA results collation centers to observe the process, ensuring timely and accurate reporting of the election process.
“Yiaga Africa has successfully deployed this methodology in two Presidential elections and 16 off-cycle governorship elections… while there were some level of compliance in areas of material deployment and other processes, 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 PUs, 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 APC received 51.1% of the votes, PDP 43.3% of the votes, and the LP garnered 4.0% of the votes. Based on reports from 287 of 300 (96%) sampled PUs, 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 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,” it said.
The report which condemned the acts of violence and disruption of voting and results collation process by political thugs and hoodlums, particularly violence directed at voters and election officials, said the development undermine the integrity of the elections.
Yiaga Africa also said that the turnout for the election did not meet the resilience test as voter turnout plummeted despite high PVC collection rates recorded for the election, with only 22.4% of the voters turned out, lower than the 27% turnout observed in 2020.
“Nevertheless, Yiaga Africa commends the resilience of the voters who turned out despite the rain and voting delays, staying back to fulfill their civic duties.”
However, an INEC official said Yiaga Africa statement cannot be used a basis to judge the election as there are mechanisms for aggrieved parties and other legal channels to explore.