TheCable

Yiaga Africa, a civil society organisation (CSO), says it will expose the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) if the poll results are manipulated.

At a press briefing in Abuja on Sunday, Hussaini Abdu, chair of Yiaga Africa ‘Watching The Vote’, said the organisation has observers across the country and is monitoring to know if INEC’s collated results will tally.

Abdu said Yiaga Africa would expose INEC in the event that the results collated and that of its observers were at variance.

“At this time, Yiaga Africa is able to provide preliminary statistically accurate data on the conduct of the election as of 25 February 2023 – from the opening of polling units through accreditation, voting, and counting until the posting of results – in addition we have independent projections of the vote shares that each candidate should receive based on the ballots cast at polling units,” Abdu said.

“If INEC’s results fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated ranges, then the public, political parties, and candidates should have confidence that the official results reflect the ballots cast at the polling units.

“However, if the official results are manipulated at any point in the process we will be able to expose it.”

Abdu said elections were not held in some polling units due to INEC’s inability to deploy officials and election materials, insecurity, disruption, or malfunctioning BVAS.

He stated that the delay in the upload of poll results to the INEC election results viewing (IREV) portal undermines public confidence in the results transmission process.

“Yiaga Africa calls on the commission to provide clear communication on locations where the election did not hold and ensure the process is concluded in those locations before returns are made,” Abdu said.

“INEC should be transparent and communicate the challenges faced during the deployment of the IReV. INEC should make publicly available all BVAS accreditation data by polling units, including the number of voters accredited by finger vs facial recognition.

“Protect the transparency of the result collation process by ensuring accredited observers and party agents are granted access to the collation centers.

“Strict adherence to the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act and INEC regulations and guidelines on the collation of results. As provided in Section 64 of the Act, collation officers, and returning officers are required to compare the number of accredited voters and election results recorded on the hardcopy result sheet and scanned images on the BVAS.”