Yiaga Africa, a civil organization, on Thursday said it stands by its reports of the just-concluded off-cycle governorship election in Edo State, stating that the election failed integrity tests and standards.
Mr Paul James, Yiaga Africa’s program officer, made the remarks at a one-day post-election meeting with Edo Civil Society Organizations’ leaders, CSOs, and media partners in Benin City.
James, who said the electoral process was largely peaceful, noted that the inflation of results in some local governments, as against the results INEC posted on IREV, rendered the outcome of the process not credible.
The Yiaga Africa program officer, who spoke on the topic “Agenda Setting and Methodology,” alleged that results in Egor, Oredo, Esan West, and Etsako West local governments were manipulated at the collation centers.
“Our position on the election, after reviewing what transpired, especially as a result of the results collation and the process, is that it fails to meet the election integrity standards for obvious reasons.
“While largely we would say the election process went well, what we observed at the collation centers showed that the results of some parties were inflated. Without casting aspersions on any party, we said any party could have benefitted from the process.
“For instance, we saw that the results in Egor, Oredo, and Esan West Local Government Areas were tampered with.
“Our reasoning was that when observers sent in reports from the polling unit levels, we compared that against what INEC had submitted on their IREV.
“To a large extent, what was in the IREV matched what we had, but when the results started coming in, maybe as a result of issues that happened at some of those collation levels, like Egor LGA, where the collation was moved to the INEC office.
“Oredo LGA was also moved. At Ikpoba Okha LGA, canisters of teargas were thrown at many people; the collation was also disrupted and moved. In Etsako West, there were gunshots around the vicinity, and the collation was also disrupted.
“So, that was why we paid attention to those specific locations, and we thought that if the results were not hampered with, it was very likely that the election might not even have been concluded on Saturday because there wouldn’t have been a clear winner. It would have gone into a runoff.
“That was based on what we saw, and we thought that it was as a result of these manipulations that these events happened,” he said.
James, however, called on INEC to invoke Section 65 of the electoral act to review the results that have allegedly been declared under questionable circumstances.
According to him, the people are aggrieved and have reasons to question the outcome; INEC can go back and look at what had happened.
“The people are aggrieved, and they have reasons to question the outcome. INEC can go back and look at what had happened. There are places where, for instance, the ward collation started, and some of the wards were skipped.
“So, if those reports are out there and the people don’t feel comfortable with the reports of some of those wards, INEC can simply go and audit it and see if whatever is there is reflective. Don’t forget that at different layers, you are supposed to have party agents, and in fact, party agents have called into question some of those results.
“I think, in the interest of transparency, the commission can kindly go back and do that. Sadly, the seven-day window for INEC to do that has expired.
“The only body that can do any of those things at the moment is the court, and so we wait to see what the court could do going forward,” he added.
He opined that the outcome of the election was assessed based on three principles: resilience, integrity, and impartiality tests.
He noted that the governorship election failed the integrity test due to the lack of transparency in the results collation processes, which led to the manipulation of results.
“While key processes such as accreditation, voting, counting, and recording of results at the polling unit substantially complied with procedures, the results collation process was compromised by the actions of some biased INEC officials in connivance with other actors. This manipulation severely undermines the overall integrity of the election,” he added.
He posited that the cases of disruption in Ikpoba Okha, Etsako West, Egor, and Oredo local government areas during the course of collation created opportunities for election manipulation, raising significant concerns about the credibility and integrity of the results collation process.