Edo: Why INEC must investigate officials involved in alleged manipulation of results – Yiaga

ON the heels of the just concluded Edo governorship election, with the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Monday Okpebholo declared the winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, an election observer, Yiaga Africa, Tuesday, called for an investigation of INEC officials allegedly involved in the manipulation of results and other infractions seen during the process.

This was contained in a post-election statement signed by the Chair of the 2024 Edo, Dr Aisha Abdullahi, and the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, respectively.

According to the statement, there were inconsistencies in the officially announced results by INEC officials based on reports received from the sampled polling units.

However, the statement added that Yiaga Africa can only verify the election outcome if it falls within its estimated margins, and if the official results do not fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated ranges, then the results may have been manipulated.

The statement reads in part, “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. 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 calls for the immediate investigation and prosecution of polling officials and collation officers who are engaged in results manipulation and flagrant violations of the guidelines on results collation.”