23rd September, 2024
By Jethro Ibileke
Yiaga Africa has called for the arrest and prosecution of electoral officers who altered figures while collating results during last Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State.
The organisation stated this in its post election statement released on Monday.
It strongly condemned “the actions of some biased INEC officials who altered figures during collation including the actions of some security officials who interfered with the collation process.
Yiaga Africa further noted that the cases of disruption in Ikpoba/Okha, Etsako West, Egor, and Oredo LGAs in the course of collation created opportunities for election manipulation, which it said raised significant concerns about the credibility and integrity of the results collation process.
In its recommendation, the Citizens’ group recommended the prosecution of INEC’s polling officers and making electronic transmission of election results compulsory.
It said: “Yiaga Africa calls for the immediate investigation and prosecution of polling officials and collation officers who are engaged in results manipulation and flagrant violations of the guidelines on results collation.
“Yiaga Africa calls on INEC to urgently clarify the inconsistencies in some of
the results, especially election results from Oredo, Egor, Esan West and LGAs.
“INEC should issue detailed guidelines for exercising its powers to review declarations and returns made contrary to provisions of the Electoral Act and regulations and guidelines. This should include procedures for receiving complaints, timeframe, format and who is eligible to submit complaints.”
Yiaga Africa further noted that “it is imperative to integrate the IReV and electronic transmission of results
into the electoral legal framework to confer legality on polling unit level results uploaded on the portal.
“To this end, the National Assembly should expeditiously amend the Electoral Act to make electronic transmission of results mandatory.”
