YIAGA AFRICA validates Buhari’s victory

The YIAGA-Africa, a civil society organisation accredited to observe last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections has verified the presidential elections results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). The Chair, YIAGA AFRICA Watching The Vote (WTV), Dr Hussaini Abdu, said this while presenting the group’s “Statement on the 2019 Presidential Election Results” […]

The YIAGA-Africa, a civil society organisation accredited to observe last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections has verified the presidential elections results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The Chair, YIAGA AFRICA Watching The Vote (WTV), Dr Hussaini Abdu, said this while presenting the group’s “Statement on the 2019 Presidential Election Results” on Wednesday in Abuja.

It said that the result fell within its Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) estimated range.

According to him, the group deployed 3,030 observer teams in pairs to a random statistical sample of 1,515 polling units located in every local government areas (LGA) and states of the country.

He said that the deployment to a statistical sample of polling units enabled YIAGA AFRICA to independently project the vote shares that each candidate should have received within a narrow range.

“YIAGA AFRICA’s findings show that for the presidential election the All Progressive Congress (APC) should receive between 50.0 percent and 55.8 percent of the vote. The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should receive between 41.2 percent and 47.0 percent of the vote; these figures are consistent with the official results as just announced by INEC. For both APC and PDP the official results fall within the PVT estimated ranges,” Abdu said.

He said that YIAGA AFRICA statement was based on reports from 1,491 polling units which are 98.4 percent of sampled polling units.

“YIAGA AFRICA’s projections were also consistent with the officially announced vote shares for the other 71 parties who contested in the presidential election. Our projections were based on the results announced in the polling units and would have detected any significant manipulation occurring during collation at the ward, local government area, state and national levels,” he said.

Abdu said that INEC’s official results for turnout and rejected ballots were also generally consistent with YIAGA AFRICA WTV estimates.

According to him, while the YIAGA AFRICA estimated that turnout was 37.5 percent with a margin of error between 35.9 percent and 39.1 percent and INEC’s official turnout was 35.7 percent; the estimated rejected ballots were 4.0 percent with a margin of error of between 3.4 percent and 4.6 percent while INEC’s official figure for rejected ballot was 4.5 percent.

He however said that the February 23 presidential election was characterized by similar shortcomings that marred previous national elections in the country.