A CIVIL society organisation (CSO), Yiaga Africa, has said its Election Result Analysis Dashboard (ERAD) report for the Ekiti and Osun governorship elections held in June and July 2022, did not suggest any winners or losers.
This was in reaction to the claim by Ismail Omipidan, the Chief Press Secretary to the Osun State governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the elections, Gboyega Oyetola, that the report indicated victory for the party.
In a statement released on Thursday, September 15, the Executive Director, Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, noted that while the report highlighted shortcomings in uploading figures to the portal of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), results announced were consistent with votes cast at polling units.
“The ERAD report corroborates the PVT findings contained in the report on the Ekiti and Osun Governorship elections released on August 27th, 2022, which clearly revealed that the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the Ekiti and Osun election were consistent with votes cast at the polling units.
“Had the official results been changed at the Ward, LGA or State collation centres, the official results would not have fallen within the Yiaga Africa PVT estimated ranges. Thus, we strongly stand by our PVT findings, which have in no way contradicted the ERAD report,” the statement read.
According to Itodo, the report identified successes and faults while election figures were uploaded to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal and provided recommendations for improvement in the future.
Gaps identified in the report included blurry images, incorrect election forms, and inconsistencies with pre-election data on numbers of collected permanent voter cards (PVCs) in some polling units.
While calling for an explanation in difference in data on collected PVCs, Yiaga Africa noted that these discrepancies were inconsequential to the election results.
Omipidan had yesterday said Yiaga Africa’s ERAD report was proof that his principal, Oyetola, won the Osun elections held in July 2022.
The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Ademola Adeleke, had emerged winner of the elections after polling over 400,000 votes, defeating the incumbent governor, Oyetola, who got over 375,000 votes.
Oyetola is presently challenging Adeleke’s victory at the Election Petition Tribunal.
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.