Group exposes election rigging patterns, mobilizes for high  voters’ turnout in 2023

A democracy advocacy group, UnlockNaija Movement, have been exposing figures of past elections in Nigeria that reveal how elections were being rigged across the country. The group while exposing the election rigging patterns and the aligned figures, advocated that the only way to curb rigging in Nigerian elections in complementary to the adoption of technology in the electoral process, is high turnout of voters on elections days.

A coordinator of the UnlockNaija Movement, Osita Chidoka, in a data analytic on the 2015 presidential election in the build up to the 2013 general elections, #Ositainsights No 4

2015 Election: Striking Data For 2023, highlighted the patterns of election rigging in northern and southern parts of the country.

The analytics revealed that the South accounted for 8.1 million votes that were linked to votes with “no PVC, No biometrics”; while the North dominated the figures 13,536,311 votes linked to votes “with PVC but no Biometrics”.

In the data analytic, 2015 election data at a glance, the elections figures were given as follows:

Registered Voters:                  67,422,005

Voter turnout:                        31,746,490

Percentage turnout:                42%

Valid Votes:                           28,587,564

Invalid Votes:                         3,158,926

APC Vote Share:                    15,424,921

PDP Vote Share:                    12,853,162

APC Winning Margin:              2,571,759

The analytic indicated that in 2015, voters countrywide cast 8,103,011 votes with “No PVC, No Biometrics”.

The votes were perceived to be “manufactured”, since “there were no records of PVC validation with the Card Reader; there was also logically no match of the biometric data.”

It was indicated 60% of the 8.1 million votes with “no PVC, No biometrics” were cast in the Southeast and South-South, while 40% of the “No PVC, No Biometrics” were in the other four zones.

The leading states with the “No PVC, No Biometrics” were identified to include Rivers State with 1.3 million votes, Delta State with over 782,000, Anambra State over 616,000, Imo State over 565,000, Akwa Ibom over 551,000, Enugu State 338,000.

The analytic indicated that if “No PVC, No Biometric” votes were deducted from the Southeast and South-South, the voter turnout for Southeast will fall from 36% to 23% (and in 2019 elections: 25%), and the South-South votes will decrease from 55% to 33% (and in 2019: 29%).

In another perspective, the analytic indicated that voters across the country cast 13,536,311 votes “with PVC but no Biometrics”. It analytic indicated that 74% of the ‘PVC no Biometric ballots’ were cast in the Northwest, Northeast and North Central. This was classified as 9.9 million votes with PVC no biometrics in the three zones of the North, while the Southern zones accounted for 3.5 million (26%) of the votes.

The leading states in the “PVC without biometrics” malpractice were identified to include Kano State with 1.3 million, Katsina State over 1 million, and Kaduna State over 800,000. The analytic pointed out that the high PVC collection rate, mainly by proxy, in the North in the 2015 general elections created room for multiple and underage voting using PVCs without biometric matching.

The group stated if “No PVC, No Biometrics” and “PVC with NO Biometrics” votes were deducted, voter turnout in the Northeast drops from 41% to 26%; Northwest from 48% to 13.5% and North Central from 40% to 30%.

The analytic indicated that the Invalid votes were greater than APC winning margin; thus, if the 2018 electoral Act as amended were in force in 2015, there would have been a run-off election as the invalid votes of 3.1 million were more than the APC winning margin of 2.5 million votes.

Tendency of transparent election

The analytic indicated that if the electoral process was transparent, that is “if only votes with PVC and Biometrics were used in the 2015 election, total valid votes would have been 10.1 million votes. Then, share of the compliant vote by Geo-Political zones would have been as follows:

Southeast               647,756 (6.40%)

South-South         1,233,671 (12.20%)

Northeast            1,380,519 (13.65%)

North Central      1,716,570 (16.98%)

Northwest          2,366,978 (23.41%)

Southwest          2,761,674 (27.32%)

The analytic summarized that the election relied on fully compliant votes, the Southwest would have had the highest vote share, followed by the Northwest and North Central. The group concluded that the implication for 2023 is that the introduction of the BVAS would reduce the total vote cast as only fully compliant votes will be valid. Proxy voting, over-voting and collation error should be minimal if not eradicated.

According to UnlockNaija Movement, the “key to determining the election is voter turnout; declaring: “staying away is not an option if you want to impact the country’s future. “Register, Vote, and snap the election result in your poll unit, log on to INEC Result Viewing Portal and cross-check.”