On Saturday, November 11, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. These were the first major elections conducted following the controversial 2023 general elections. The election in Imo State was the first to be concluded with the incumbent Governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Hope Uzodinma declared winner with 540,308 votes, to beat his closest rivals, Samuel Anyanwu of the People\u2019s Democratic Party (PDP) who garnered 71,503 votes and Athan Achonu of the Labour Party who scored 64,081 votes. In Kogi State, INEC declared the APC candidate, Usman Ododo as winner of the election with 446,237 votes. The candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Murtala Ajaka was in second place with 259,052 votes and the PDP candidate, Dino Melaye came a distant third with 46,362 votes. In Bayelsa State, the incumbent Governor, Duoye Diri of the PDP was declared winner of the election having scored 175,196 votes, with Timipre Sylva of the APC in second place with 110,108 votes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As feared, the conduct of these three State Governorship off-cycle\nelections turned out to be disappointing. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room in its statements on elections,\nnoted that while polls opened at the official time (8:30 am) in a good percentage\nof polling units observed in Kogi and Bayelsa States, in Imo State, there was\ndelayed commencement of polls in many polling units visited in Imo State. The\nBi-modal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) functioned optimally in most polling\nunits visited by Situation Room observers across the three States. It is\nnotable that while security personnel were sighted in most polling units\nobserved in Kogi (92 %) and Bayelsa (86%) States, in Imo State, security\npersonnel were seen in 47% of polling units visited. Imo State has been faced with\nsevere security challenges for the past few years and even in the lead up to\nthe election. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The level of election violence was relatively less compared to previous\nelections in these States, particularly Kogi. However, there were still reports\nof voter intimidation and inter-party clashes resulting in injury and even\ndeath. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Reports of result falsification and pre-filled election results emerged\nfrom across the three States. In Bayelsa State, political actors attempted to\ntamper with results in Brass, Sagbama, Southern Ijaw and Nembe Local Government\nAreas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In some locations in Imo State, such as Ndioha hall PU 011 in Ogbe Ward,\nthe election result was cancelled for non-use of BVAS for accreditation and in\nCommunity School Umuawada PU 004 in Onicha I Ward, the election result was\ncancelled due to over voting. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Unlike the 2023 general elections, election officials did not seem to upload\npolling unit results immediately to INEC\u2019s Results Viewing (IReV) portal at the\nend of voting and counting of votes. However, the results were eventually\nuploaded to the portal. The portal now has a new feature that did not exist at\nthe time of the 2023 general elections. While the uploaded image of the polling\nunit result sheet (Form EC 8A) contains the number of accredited voters in a\npolling unit, among other data as recorded by the ad-hoc staff, this feature also shows the number of\naccredited voters for each polling unit with a time stamp. It displays a\ndisclaimer which states that the accreditation figures may not be final until\nsynchronisation is completed from the devices (BVAS) used at the various\npolling unit locations. However, it is curious that not all uploaded polling\nunit results have this feature displayed. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It is assumed that the number of accredited voters recorded by ad-hoc\nstaff on the polling unit result sheet was derived from the accreditation\nrecord on the BVAS. In the absence of an explanation of this new feature by INEC,\nit is unclear if it serves as a means to verify the actual number of voters\naccredited using the records synchronised directly from the BVAS to the IReV\nportal, to compare with the accreditation figures recorded on the result sheets\nby ad-hoc election staff. However, with election results announced and five\ndays after the elections, copies of polling unit results are still being\nuploaded on the portal and the said synchronisation is yet to conclude.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It was also observed that some of the result sheets uploaded on the IReV\nportal are the same for several polling units. For example, in Imo State, the\nresult sheet for Umuobiala Village\nSquare PU 009 was also uploaded for Isokwe Central School PU 005, both in\nUmualumuoke Ward of Okigwe Local Government Area. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Discrepancies in election results and other infractions within the\nelectoral process are still rife. According to election analysts, these three\ngovernorship elections presented an opportunity for INEC to apply the lessons\nlearnt from the 2023 general elections and restore citizens\u2019 trust in the\nelectoral process. However, these off-cycle governorship elections were not an\nimprovement on the 2023 general elections. The conduct of these elections dashed\nhopes of an immediate improvement in the electoral process and further\nentrenched the need for an immediate overhaul of Nigeria\u2019s electoral system. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
On Saturday, November 11, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) conducted Governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi States. These were the first major elections conducted following the controversial 2023 general elections. The election in Imo State was the first to be concluded with the incumbent Governor and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":3469,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3461","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3461"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3470,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3461\/revisions\/3470"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3469"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3461"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3461"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/placng.org\/Legist\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3461"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}