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Okwe Obi, Abuja
Civil Society Organisation, YIAGA Africa, has said votes cancelled in last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) exceeded that of 2015 referendum.
It further said in 2015, cancellation was 1.1 percent, while that of 2019 stood at 3.3 percent, and called on INEC to speedily investigate the snag, especially in Nasarawa State.
The group stressed that such cancellation could incite violence because it infringed on the fundamental right of Nigerians.
Addressing newsmen, yesterday, in Abuja, Chairman of YIAGA Africa Watching the Vote, Dr. Hussaini Abdu, also claimed most projections were in tandem with INEC’s, especially that of the margins.
“The percentages of cancelled ballots announced by INEC was 3.3 percent of all registered voters. This is four times higher than the rate of 2015, when registered votes in cancelled polling units was less than one percent of all registered votes.
“States where the percentage of registered votes in cancelled polling units exceeded four percent of registered voters are Rivers (22.7 percent), Nasarawa (9.5 percent), Akwa Ibom (5.8 percent), Cross River (8.0 percent), Plateau (5.7 percent), Kogi (5.2 percent), Benue (4.9 percent), and Kaduna (4.7 percent),” he said.
Apart from explaining how it was able to glean its findings, which was made possible with the use of Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) methodology; a gold standard observation methodology that uses the Information Communication Technology (ICT), he further claimed that the YIAGA Africa deployed 3,030 observer teams, in pairs, to a random statistical sample of 1.515 polling units located in every local government areas and states across the country.
