The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) may have been caught in the act red-handed deducting the scores of the Labour Party (LP) Presidential Candidate, Mr. Peter Gregory Obi, while trying to make up for the 25 per cent deficient result of the All Progressives Congress (APC) presidential candidate, Alhaji Bola Ahmed Tinubu, in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja.
It could be recalled that, according to INEC’s final presidential election result in FCT, Abuja, Peter Obi secured 281,717 votes to beat APC’s Tinubu who polled 90,902 votes, while Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 74,199 votes.
When tallied together, Peter mopped up 58.823 per cent of all votes cast, while Tinubu scored 18.981 per cent and Atiku 15.493 per cent.
However, recent development shows that APC has moved from 19 per cent to 23, while LP has reduced from 63 to 58.
The development was captured by @General_Oluchi who had raised alarm that “this criminal organization INEC was up to something illegal”.
Raising further alarm on Tuesday on her Twitter handle, Oluchi noted that “Another crime has been committed!”
According to her, INEC restricted views on FCT, Abuja results, while seemingly “deducting LP scores to fill up APC scores in FCT, to match up to the missing 25%”.
She then asked:
“If 25% in FCT was not mandatory In presidential Elections, why is the embattled INEC Chairman Yakubu Mahmood and his team trying to criminally give APC 25%?”
Tweeting further, she claimed that “the embattled INEC Chairman Yakubu Mahmoud and his team [are] trying to criminally give APC 25%”, warning that tampering with evidence is regarded as a crime.
Still buttressing the matter, Oluchi posted:
“My attention was drawn to the IREV this evening, and it appears that INEC has disabled viewing of many PU results in the FCT, Abuja.”
She added:
“In the early hours of Monday, I wondered, “What is INEC up to?” Other Nigerians, both in the FCT and elsewhere in the country, corroborated the same.”
It’s not yet clear how many states are affected but all interested persons are urged to check their polling units for the current status of results.
Analysing Oluchi’s findings, a news media reported:
“Just as Nigerians awoke to the news that Bola Ahmed Tinubu had been declared winner under dubious circumstances, undermining important constitutional provisions, one of which is the 25% in the two-thirds states AND the FCT, It felt like deja vu waking up on Monday, June 26th, to find Polling Unit Results that were previously visible to everyone who went to the IREV portal missing.”
For the avoidance of doubt, News band checked on the Kwali LGA, Pai Ward, Leleyi Bassa polling unit but it was no longer available on IREV.
See the attached screenshot below:
Below is another example:
Data professionals opted to look into the development and for the disabled results, this is what is currently visible on the Portal for each of them:
<Error>
<Code>AllAccessDisabled</Code>
All access to this object has been disabled.
<RequestId>CC7G9XCHA93ZXSTW</RequestId>
<HostId>Bd1j4GWI8duRdUXeaT5htrzssReaCq4ysU5rHbkiDGWeshqQZFfdpS5HRXCFv1SPvvsmQGQ/GAg=</HostId>
</Error>
See the screenshot as follows:
According to reports, as of 11 p.m. CAT, there were 1,681 disabled voters results out of a total of 2,644 polling units in the FCT, or approximately 63.6%.”
See chart below:
INEC is yet to react to the development or enlighten Nigerians on what it is up to if any.
In the meantime, the election results are still under dispute in the Presidential Election Petition Court (PEPC) sitting at the Court of Appeal.
So far, both LP and PDP have supplied Certified True Copies (CTC) of the IREV results as part of evidence to support their case.
Last week, the petitioners closed their opening arguments and the Respondents are expected to start their defence on July 3.
It could be recalled that INEC raised millions of eyebrows when, prior to the governorship elections held on Marck 18, 2023, it sought leave of the court to format and reconfigure the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) devices.
Despite assuring the court that every data was backed up and would be made available when needed, INEC will later tell the court that certain key election data like the Accreditation figures were missing.
An observer remarked that “somehow, every time the system goes dark, LP numbers reduce in favour of the APC”. Read more.
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