Edo 2024: Fake News, Irregularities, Misrepresentation Mar Poll – Situation Room 

By Emmanuel Adeoye, Philip Tayo 

The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room has revealed that the issue of fake news, irregularities and misrepresentations experienced before the Edo poll on Saturday dampened the minds and morales of the Edo State electorates during the poll. 

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The Lead Convener of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room for the Edo State Governorship Election, Mallam Zakari Yinusa stated the above while expressing the concerns of the Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room on the poll on behalf of others. 

Zakari speaking while presenting the mid-day situation report for the September 21st election, said the three major fake news in circulation contributed negatively to the disposition of the voters.

Adding, the Situation Room revealed that the propagation of the three major fake news at the eve of the election, impacted on it and caused confusion among voters, which led to the late arrival of election materials and the opening of polling units.

The briefing further highlighted shocking cases of vote trading and voters inducement across several polling units despite security personnels presence. It, however, revealed the apprehension of at least two culprits involved. 

However, despite their presence, our observers noted wide spread instances of vote buying carried out openly in some areas. However, we acknowledged the arrest of at least two votes traders in Ida Primary School, ward 2, Oredo and Igueben LGA. 

“The price of vote ranges from N5000 to N10,000 per voter in several locations including PU08 to PU09- ward 2, Owan East-LGA, PU02, ward 2 Etsako west, and several polling units in Egor and Owan west-LGA. In some cases, voters were also induced with food items such as bread and Gala.

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This is coupled with situation of under-representation of party agents at most of the polling units.

“Party agents were observed in most polling unit with the following distribution: APC-about 41%; Labour Party-13%; PDP-25%, PRP-5%, others-less than 2%. The party agents have so far conducted themselves in an orderly manner with proper identification. We wish to acknowledge that party agents were not seen in many of the polling units observed.”

Meanwhile, in the address, the organisation, acknowledged the adoption of BVAS and its optimum performance in the process across polling units, recording only a few cases of failure so far.

“Observers on ground reported that the accreditation process was conducted using Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), with the device functioning well at about 98% of the polling unit visited. The average time for voter accreditation in most unit were approximately 1 minute per voter. Facial recognition authentication appeared to perform better than thumb print authentication. However, some isolated cases of BVAS failures were reported including at PU6, ward 10 Esan west- LGA.”

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