Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, says the civil society organisation (CSO) plans to assess the credibility of the governorship election in Edo State, south-south Nigeria, with parallel vote tabulation (PVT) methodology.
Itodo, who made this known in a statement, said that the CSO, through its Watching the Vote movement, would also deploy 500 observers to monitor the election.
The PVT, Development Diaries understands, is an advanced election observation methodology that employs statistical principles and information technology in providing timely information on conduct of elections.
Itodo said that the process would monitor accreditation, voting, and counting, and it will independently verify the official governorship results as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
‘The PVTs are not opinion polls; Yiaga Africa citizen observers do not ask voters for whom they cast their ballot; PVT relies solely on official results from polling units’, the statement read.
‘This tested and proven election observation methodology has been deployed in over 50 countries worldwide, including Nigeria.
‘Yiaga Africa deployed the PVT in the November 2019 Kogi and Bayelsa governorship election where it detected fraud and manipulation of results collation and declined to verify the official results declared by INEC’.
Itodo said that the observers would monitor the conduct of the process and provide systematic, accurate and timely information on the election day process.
The Yiaga executive director explained that since the PVT was based on official results from a representative random sample of polling units, Yiaga Africa would estimate the state-wide results for the governorship election within a narrow range based on well-established statistical principles.
According to him, if INEC’s official results fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated range, then the public, political parties and candidates would have confidence that the official results reflected the ballots cast at polling units.
Itodo, however, said that if the announced results have been manipulated and do not match the polling units’ results, Yiaga Africa would expose the results.
The front runners in the race for the highest office in the Edo government are Governor Godwin Obaseki of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Osagie Ize-Iyamu of All Progressives Congress (APC).
Source: Yiaga Africa
Photo source: Yiaga Africa
