How INEC Rigged Murtala Ajaka Out of Kogi Governorship Election

Politics, they say, is a game of numbers. The party with the highest number of votes, not minding how such numbers are accumulated, is declared the winner. On Sunday 18th August, Mr. Seun Okinbaloye of Channels Television, on the Sunday Politics show, had an interview with Mr. Osita Chidoka, a former governorship candidate of Anambra State, a former minister of Aviation and the Founder and Chancellor of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership. The goal of the interview was to critically provide a forensic review of the 2023 off-cycle Governorship Elections in Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi States. Mr. Chidoka revealed that it took his team about 8-9 months to get the reports ready since the elections held in November. He indicated that the data gathered for his analysis were from the BVAS, and forms EC8A, EC8B, EC8D, where elections took place, and form ECG4 where elections didn’t take place, all gotten from the INEC. He also got data from results in over 10,000 IReV pdf files, which he reviewed and compared with what the BVAS revealed. However, some of the documents they got from the INEC, such as the BVAS results, didn’t come with time stamps.

The Imo State election was won by the All Progressive Congress, from the INEC results, with a total of 540,308 votes, followed by the People Democratic Party with a total of 71,503 votes and Labor Party with a total of 64,081; the voter turnout was 29.4%. However, in the Athena’s analysis, the BVAS only accredited 541,049 voters officially on the day of the election; while the form EC8A has recorded on it 728,887 voters; the form EC8B has 729,669 voters due to vote inflations; and after some cancellations, the form EC8D had 717,895 voters which was the final votes used in declaring the results. The results further indicated that there was significant non-compliance with the INEC Electoral guidelines in 1,101 polling units, leading to 23.1% altered election results. In 77% of the polling units, the results were consistent as the total vote and the BVAS matched. The highest non-compliance was in the local government of the Governor. Also, there was over-voting in 875 polling units (18.3%), which accounted for 347,560 votes substantially impacting the final results, with 293,451 over-voting from APC, 16,425 over-voting from PDP, and 15,798 over-voting from LP. The result from the analysis showed that even if the discrepancies were avoided, the APC would have still won the election. It is observed from the report that the PDP and the LP did not in any way compete with the APC in the election that took place in Imo State, and this could be due to voter’s intimidation, oppression and suppression, as the case may be, the role that the security agencies are known to play when induced by the powers that be.

Moreover, the Bayelsa State election was won by PDP with a total of 175,198 votes, the APC followed next with a total of 110,103 votes, and LP with a total of 905 votes; the voter turnout was 27.5%. Moving on, in the Athena’s analysis, the BVAS only accredited 253,520 voters officially on the day of the election; while the form EC8A recorded 337,699 voters; the form EC8B had 332,312 voters due to vote cancellation; and the form EC8D 300,072 voters, the final voters recorded, so there was a discrepancy of about 40,000 votes going by what the BVAS recorded at the outset and what the form EC8D reported. In 85% of the polling units in Bayelsa, there were no issues; however, in 15% (338 polling units) there were discrepancies. The over-voting in 254 polling units (11.3%) accounted for 94,348 votes substantially impacting the final result; APC got 80,058 over-voting results, PDP got 12,025 over-voting results, and LP got 758 over-voting results. So, PDP would have still won the election after the discrepancies are subtracted, while APC votes would have drastically reduced to 63,430 votes if the discrepancies were removed.

Furthermore, the Kogi State election was purportedly won by the APC with a total of 446,237 votes, followed by SDP with a total of 259,062 votes, and PDP with a total of 46,362 votes as announced by the INEC. Going forward, the Athena’s analysis revealed that the BVAS only accredited 656,313 voters officially on the day of the election; while the form EC8A reported 792,335 voters; the form EC8B had 821,473 voters due to vote inflations; and after some corrections, the form EC8D had 794,500 voters. The significant non-compliance with the INEC Electoral guidelines were in 786 polling units (22.5%) which altered the election results. The total vote cast was higher than the BVAS accreditation. The over-voting in 691 polling units (19.6%) accounted for 318,838 votes substantially impacting the election final result. The analysis showed that APC recorded 278,010 over-voting discrepancies, PDP recorded 6,174 over-voting result, and SDP recorded 22,773 over-voting results. The analysis further observed the addition of 15,956 votes over what was recorded in form EC8A in 82 polling units, across 12 Local Government Areas. This showed that the SDP polled the highest votes using results of the 2,722 INEC compliant polling units. The total votes of the SDP was 477,443; followed by APC with a total of 161,498; and PDP with a total of 40,884. SDP got the highest votes and was 25% above in 13 LGAs, less than the 14 LGAs (2/3) constitutionally required. So, APC won majority of the votes in the INEC Non-Complaint polling units and benefited from the discrepancies. It is worthy of note that SDP with its brilliant performance will have won 25% in more than 14 LGAs if there were no discrepancies of the magnitude recorded. Recall also that the was a reported case of pre-filled election results in several polling units in one of the Local Governments, as well as the reported case of a female INEC official, carrying in her bag one million naira, on the day of the election. Recall also, the reported assassination attempt on the life of Mr. Murtala Ajaka, which led to the death of the police officers assigned to him and many others. The work of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership is indeed commendable for it went extra miles to dig into the can of worms on INEC to bring to light the atrocities and fraud that had hitherto and characterized our electioneering processes, resulting in the emergence of bad leaders for the country. One would have loved to see these same efforts extended in the direction of the major elections that took place earlier, especially the February 25th 2023 Presidential Election that brought into power, President Bola Ahmed Tinubu of the APC, with just 37% of the votes to emerge.

In conclusion, Mr. Chidoka gave some recommendations and solutions to curb these corrupt practices during electoral processes. First, at the polling units, the use of technology should be deepened. The BVAS has an accreditation module and a collation module, and so the collation module should equally be activated with the accreditation module. This means that after voting, the results should the entered into the BVAS, and it should also be entered manually for comparison sake. Also, there should be visibility about who the presiding officers and the collation officers are, showing their names and photographs after being registered, polling by polling units for accountability. He added that there is need to contain what he calls “an affidavit section”, where the Electoral officer would sign that the results he is entering are valid and he is liable for prosecution in the events they are found not to be so at the polling unit level. At the collation level, INEC has the power to review result within 7 days, thus, should be able to review what the BVAS has against what has been entered and make sure they cancel all the appropriate results that need to be cancelled. It should be a hearing where the parties will tender their evidence of what they think went wrong and INEC should review them. Finally, he added that an election offences tribunal should be set up, and very importantly, all the petitions must end before swearing-in. He also believes that all the paper ballots should be scanned by election auditors. Lastly, INEC should upload the form EC8B, the collation report, so people can cross-check its similarities to form EC8A report, as well as the BVAS report automatically uploading the numbers of voters accredited. He closed by stating that the program is not for litigation purposes and a legal opinion but an opinion to enhance the credibility of our elections. It is in the view of the Giantability Media Network that Professor Mahmood Yakubu, the INEC Chairman, has led an institution that has failed to comply substantially with the 2022 Electoral Act, as well as the INEC guidelines, and to this end, he should resign, considering the faulty foundation that INEC has laid for Nigeria and the disgrace it had attracted for Nigeria from the international community. INEC needs people of integrity and of good character, and now is the time to change the usual way of electing criminals into the leadership positions in Nigeria. We applaud the leadership of the Athena Centre for Policy and Leadership, and say, more grease to their elbows for a job well done.