A group of Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), who served as election observers, have said that the Edo 2024 governorship election failed the test for a credible election and that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)’s ability and willingness to conduct credible elections is ‘questionable’.
The submission was made in a report based on the findings from the various observation hubs on the 2024 Edo State Governorship Election released by the Situation Room and some of its accredited member organisations -Centre for Democracy and Development (CDD-West Africa), Yiaga Africa, Kimpact Development Initiative (KDI), Nigerian Women Trust Fund (NWTF), and TAF Africa.
They said: “It is our observation that the Edo State Governorship election 2024 failed to fulfil the requirement of the conduct of credible elections, and again, raises questions about election credibility in Nigeria. As with recent polls, INEC’s ability and willingness to conduct credible elections in Nigeria remain questionable.”
“As noted in the preliminary statements of Situation Room and its accredited member organisations, the election experienced a slow start as a result of logistical challenges, which led to the late commencement of polls across several polling units in the state. While the situation room noted the late start of polls, it commended INEC for the deployment of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) which enabled a relatively smooth accreditation and voting process. While the voting process was concluded in a relatively peaceful atmosphere, the results collation process in some LGAs were not peaceful and did not meet the electoral integrity standards for results managements,”the groups added.
They highlighted “reports of disruptions at ward and local government collation centers in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor and Oredo Local Government Areas (LGAs) and reports of intimidation of INEC officials and attempts to collate results contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines.”
The statement called on INEC “to invoke its powers under Section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022 to review any declarations and returns where results were not declared voluntarily or violated provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC regulations and guidelines. These were significant concerns about the credibility of the results collation process.”
On the collation process, the Situation Room and its partners noted that they are concerned that the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 and guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the collation process appeared to have been compromised in the Edo State Governorship election 2024.
“As with previous elections, the collation process in this election is again a weak link. Our observation of the collation process shows that it was not transparent nor opened to representatives of the various candidates in some cases. In addition, it lacks transparency in the application of the provision of the Electoral Act and the INEC Guidelines on over-voting and cancellation of results from polling units. This raised a major question on the lack of clarity and uniformity in the application of rules on cancellation of ballots across different LGAs. Indeed, the report of many collation centres operating in darkness is also questionable,” the groups added.
They noted that reports of Situation Room member organisations, including from Yiaga Africa’s Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) and KDI’s Ballot Integrity Project (BIP), reveal contradictions between the final results declared and the results declared at the polling unit level in some LGAs.
“This occurrence was particularly observed in Egor, Ikpoba Okha, Oredo, Esan West and Ovia South-West LGAs,” the groups disclosed.
On over-voting, they said there were several reports of over-voting as revealed by findings from the various observation hubs, including the CDD-West Africa’s Election Analysis Centre (CDD-EAC), adding that over-voting was reported from more than 370 polling units across the 18 LGAs of the State by our various observers.
