By Chibuike Nwabuko
Abuja (Sundiata Post) – YIAGA AFRICA Watching The Vote (WTV) has called on Nigerians voters, political parties, candidates and international stakeholders to have confidence in the just-concluded electoral process and the officially announced results by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
It gave the advice against the backdrop that the officially result released by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is consistent with YAIGA’s projections even with votes shares for the other 71 parties who contested in the presidential election.
YIAGA AFRICA said its projection are based on the results announced in the pooling units and would have detected any significant manipulation occurring during collation at the Ward, Local Government Area, State and National levels.
YIAGA AFRICA disclosed this on Wednesday at its result verification press briefing in Abuja.
Sundiata Post recalls that prior to the release of the election, YIAGA AFRICA in its preliminary statement on February 24, said that the two parties receiving the largest vote shares deployed party agents to nearly all polling units in the country and that these agents overwhelmingly agreed with the announced results.
YIAGA AFRICA’s findings show that for the presidential election, the All Progressives Congress (APC) should receive between 50.0% to 55.8% of the vote; and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should receive between 41.2% and 47.0% of 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, YIAGA ADRICA said.
Recall that YIAGA AFRICA Watching The Vote deployed 3,906 observers throughout the country to every state and all 774 local government areas.
This deployment enabled YIAGA AFRICA to independently verify the accuracy of the official presidential election results when they are announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
YIAGA AFRICA therefore called on President Muhammadu Buhari and his party, All Progressives Congress (APC) as well as their supporters to be magnanimous in victory and urged candidates who did not win to exercise political maturity in their defeat and to abide by the letter and spirit of the election peace accord signed in December 2018 by calling on their supporters to remain peaceful.
