Edo 2024 Election Fails Electoral Integrity Test – YIAGA Africa

…says INEC officials compromised collation process

…calls for prosecution of biased INEC officials

By EDITOR

Yiaga Africa, one of the observers for the 2024 Edo Governorship Election, has said that the Saturday 21, 2024 election failed the electoral integrity test as Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) officials compromised the collation process.

The non-profit organization disclosed this in its Post-Election Statement on the September 2024 Edo State Governorship Election signed by the Chair, Edo 2024 Election Mission, Dr. Aisha Abdullahi and Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo.

Yiaga Africa stated that “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.”

On the conduct of the election by INEC, Yiaga Africa, said: “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, Peoples 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.”

It added: “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 called 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.

It added: “Yiaga Africa calls on INEC to urgently clarify the inconsistencies in some of the results, especially election results from Oredo, Egor, Esan West and LGAs. INEC should issue detailed guidelines for exercising its powers to review declarations and returns made contrary to provisions of the Electoral Act and regulations and guidelines. This should include procedures for receiving complaints, timeframe, format, and who is eligible to submit complaints.”