How KDI’s Edo Post Election Report Indicts INEC, Police, Political Parties? 

By Philip Tayo 

The KIMPACT Development Initiative, KDI, has indicted the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, the leading Security Agency in the Country – the Nigeria Police Force and the Political Parties in its post Edo State Governorship Election. 

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The KDI in an 8-paragraph post Edo State Governorship election report made available to newsmen on Wednesday, pointed out the various errors and flaws committed by the Country’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC; the leading security agency in the Country, the Nigeria Police Force and the agents of the two major political parties that contested the election, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP and the All Progressives Congress, APC. 

According to the KDI’s report, it berated INEC for failing to heed to it’s earlier warning, which predicted there was going to be a 2 hours rain on the election day, by putting in place adequate logistics to manage the weather conditions so as not to disrupt the election process or voting at the various polling units across the State. 

The KDI was of the view that the increase in the numbers of the rejected votes recorded in the election during collation must have been prompted by the heavy rainfall that truncated the voting processes in most of the polling units on election day. 

It revealed that the rainfall massively  affected the conduct of the election in most parts of Esan Northwest, Esan Central, Estako Central and Igueben as major roads and polling units were heavily flooded at the time votings were ongoing. Also, it added that certain polling units were unable to continue accreditation in Ikpoba – Okha, Egor, Uhunmwonde and Esan Central. 

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It also blamed the INEC for failing in its responsibility as an electoral umpire to ensure there was no disruptions in transporting election materials and ad-hoc staff from Registration Area Centres, RAC’s to the Polling units on the election day. 

KDI in its post election report equally identified the inadequate transportation preparations made by INEC as the reason for the late arrival of election materials and ad-hoc staff to most of the polling units assigned to them as well as the reason behind the late commencement and opening of the polling units during the Edo State Governorship election. 

Advise was however offered to INEC to conduct a ballot paper audit to ascertain if rain on the election day affected ballot papers in areas listed above considering high numbers of rejected votes running to about 13,275 representing 3.43% increase from the rejected votes of 12,835 in the 2020 governorship elections in the State. 

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It also blamed the INEC for the failure of the BVAS which had technical issues and malfunctioned in several polling units across the State on the election day. Adding, the KDI also accused the INEC officials for failing to provide the password details of BVAS on time to some of the election ad-hoc officers employed by it. 

KDI added in it’s report, that it received over 1,247 calls and messages through its Election Day Data Room, EDDR, with 17 of the reports showing incidents electoral violence like ballot box snatching in areas such as Ward 10, polling unit 7 of Estako Central, where a suspected political party supporter seized a ballot box upon realizing his party was likely to lose. Other areas such equally happened includes Ward 11, polling unit 5 and 6 of Estako West; Ward 11, polling unit 34 of Oredo LGA; Ward 1, polling unit 2 of Egor LGA and Ward 4, polling unit 3 of Akoko Edo LGA.

Some ad-hoc staff employed by the INEC were also accused of allowing people to vote without proper accreditation, fake permanent voters cards and voters cards belonging to someone being allowed to be use to vote by another person on the election day in places like Ward 3, polling unit 18 of Akoko Edo LGA and Ward 4, polling unit 8 of Orhionmwon LGA. 

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Going further by the details of the post election report, the KDI stated that “it completed an analysis of the data uploaded to the IREV, using the Ballot Integrity Project, BIP, methodology with a margin error of +-2%, which was used to raise critical concerns on the integrity of the result management process in the election. 

“It added how it has consistently noted with concern the long-standing issues in the Country’s election result collation processes, which remains susceptible to human error and system failures. They expressed worry about the usual rituals at the collation centres, where stakeholders’ who frequently raised concerns, are often met with standard response such as “point noted” without administrative steps taken to assess the merit and demerit of such concerns. 

“They argued how there observations from previous election and the just concluded one held in Edo State, have continued to ignore section 65 of the Electoral Act empowering the INEC to review election results within 7 days of announcements. 

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“It pointed out, how INEC’s guidelines and regulations for the conduct of elections in the Country in section 99 confers on them an administrative power. 

Also, “KDI explained how it’s Ballot Integrity Project, BIP, analysis shows a 6.04% inflation in the results declared by INEC. They advocated that results should decrease during collation process, due to cancellations resulting from issues like violence or BVAS bypasses, or remain consistent if no such cancellations occurred. They established that an increase or addition in the number of votes recorded in some of the collation centres, thereby exposing some serious discrepancies and casting serious doubt on the transparency and credibility of the collation process. 

Speaking further, KDI queried why all the 18 LGA’s Returning Officers and Electoral Officers reported no cancellations during the State – level collation, revealing in their analysis that at least 22 polling units had form EC40G uploaded on the IREV, thereby indicating disruptions or BVAS – related issues. Hence the number of Permanent Voters Cards collected in these polling units exceeded the margin of lead based on the IREV – collated results, raising concerns about the accuracy of the declared outcome, thereby indicating a high likelihood of a supplementary election for the 2024 Edo State Governorship Election if polling units results on IREV were inconsistent with what was declared. 

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KDI held further, “that INEC records showed 604,132 votes were accredited, yielding 570,690 valid votes and 13,275 rejected ballots, resulting in a total of 583,965 votes cast, and 20,167 discrepancies in the accredited voters whose votes were omitted from the valid and rejected votes classifications. If no votes were cancelled, as reported by INEC LGA’s Returning Officers, this would raise serious questions as to where and why 20,167 votes got missed”, they submitted. 

The KDI post election report however  urged INEC to thoroughly examine the quality of training provided to the ad-hoc staff and to investigate any potential instances of sabotage within the process. KDI also advised INEC to create enough time to properly examine the form EC8A which was uploaded on the IREV, which exposed a clear distinct instances of over-voting in more than 300 polling units across 14 local government areas. KDI called for investigations by the INEC leadership why that there are instances where the numbers of voters exceeded the total numbers of accredited voters, and established whether the discrepancies were intentional or merely arithmetic errors committed by the polling officials on election day. 

KDI also submitted, revealing how they adopted a predictive modelling to project the level of the voters turnout, which helped them to determine the range of  between 20% and 24%, producing a lower margin of lead in comparison to the 2020 gubernatorial election, considering the current electoral climate. They however confirmed that the actual turnout of 22.4% aligned with there own forecast, as well as the reduced margin of lead, which fell to 44,393 from the 84,336 recorded in 2020 election. 

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They also accused the Nigeria Police Force as the leading Security Agency in the Country, despite its heavy presence and deployment to Edo State from different States of the Country for allowing ballot box snatching and violence while voting were ongoing during the election. 

Political Parties were not equally spared by the KIMPACT Development Initiative for engaging freely in voting buying and inducements with as low as N1,000, food items, as well as much as N5,000, N10,000 and N12,000 during the just concluded Edo State Governorship Election. 

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