How Electoral Body, INEC, Government Officials Changed Tinubu, Peter Obi’s Scores During Presidential Election, Hired ‘Questionable Individual’ To Read Results – BBC Investigation

Despite the truth that, the opposition parties particularly the PDP and LP possess rejected and are stressful the final consequence in election petition Tribunal, the “president-elect” Bola Tinubu is on account of be inaugurated on 29 Could furthermore.

An investigation by the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) on the February 25 Nigeria’s presidential election has stumbled on proof suggesting different results might perchance well furthermore had been manipulated.

SaharaReporters reported that on March 1, 2023 the chairman of the Autonomous Nationwide Electoral Rate (INEC) Prof Mahmood Yakubu declared the presidential candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu because the winner and declared him because the “president-elect.”

In accordance to the INEC declaration, Tinubu of the APC polled 8,794,726 votes to defeat his contenders – Atiku Abubakar of the opposition Of us’s Democratic Celebration (PDP) who polled 6,984,520 votes, Labour Celebration’s Peter Obi had 6,101,533 votes to come third and candidate of the New Nigeria Of us’s Celebration (NNPP) Rabiu Kwankwaso with 1,496,687 votes.

Despite the truth that, the opposition parties particularly the PDP and LP possess rejected and are stressful the final consequence in election petition Tribunal, the “president-elect” Bola Tinubu is on account of be inaugurated on 29 Could furthermore.

On the other hand, the BBC investigation has uncovered essential anomalies in Rivers Tell, a key battleground saying there are also questions over the id of an election legit who read out doubtless the most unexplained results.

The BBC Investigation printed what it demonstrate in Rivers Tell.

“We added up the balloting tally sheets from over 6,000 polling stations in Rivers Tell, where many of the opposition complaints had been made.

“Whereas the legit consequence on this train gave a clear majority to Bola Tinubu of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), our tally urged that Peter Obi of the Labour Celebration (LP) had the truth is got most votes in the train by a vast margin.

“We stumbled on an enhance of appropriate over 106,000 in Mr Tinubu’s vote in the legit declaration when compared with our polling enviornment tally – almost doubling his total in the train. In disagreement, Mr Obi’s vote had fallen by over 50,000.

“Or no longer it’s essential always create obvious that despite the truth that we searched via the election web voice material for each one in every of the 6,866 polling stations in Rivers train, we weren’t ready to diagram results from all of them.

“Some were incorrectly uploaded, others were lacking, even after a month from the date of polling. For about 5% of polling stations, the images of tally sheets were too blurred for us to read. Or no longer it is affordable to think that the legit rely would possess integrated these as they would possess had the usual paperwork.

“In one other 17%, there had been no results at all. Loads of these would had been locations where no balloting took enviornment on account of security components or the non-arrival of balloting materials. Others had technical problems combating officials importing the paperwork.

“So there clearly would had been extra polling stations integrated in the final legit results that weren’t integrated in the BBC investigation.

“On the other hand, these extra tally sheets would possess elevated the totals for every birthday party, no longer decreased them. And what we stumbled on turned into once that the votes for Peter Obi’s Labour Celebration had decreased sharply in Rivers train. So how can the engaging plunge in votes for Peter Obi – in the legit consequence – be explained?”

The BBC yarn added that the main fundamental discrepancy turned into once the Oyigbo native government enviornment, where “we stumbled on: the vote for Bola Tinubu turned into once six times bigger in the formally announced results compared with the BBC’s polling enviornment rely. Peter Obi’s votes had been sever in half of. The 2nd native government enviornment where we stumbled on fundamental discrepancies turned into once in nearby Obio/Akpor: The legit consequence for Mr Tinubu turned into once 80,239 votes, nonetheless we counted appropriate 17,293 votes from polling enviornment tallies.”

“The rely for Mr Obi turned into once announced formally as appropriate 3,829 votes, nonetheless the BBC counted 74,033 votes for him on the tally sheets. So how did these differences occur? As explained earlier, the entire polling enviornment sheets are collated at native government (LGA) headquarters.

“We stumbled on an legit election doc with these collated votes for the Oyigbo enviornment, signed by an election legit and doubtless the most birthday party brokers. Several varied photos had been taken of it and uploaded on social media accounts. The numbers on this doc carefully matched our recognize tallies for the two main candidates (Obi and Tinubu).

“This would had been one in every of the 23 collation sheets from LGAs in Rivers train taken to the train capital, Port Harcourt, for the legit declaration. Broadcast stay on tv on 27 February, in front of a bank of microphones, Oyigbo election legit, Dr Dickson Ariaga, announced his establish and that he labored for the Federal College of Education in Omoku.”

On the recording, the be conscious “Omoku” is vague, nonetheless there is easiest one Federal College of Education in Rivers Tell.

Dr Ariaga then read out the consequences for every birthday party in alphabetical uncover, in conjunction with for the entire smaller parties.

All of them matched those on the collation sheet the BBC had got. But when he reached Mr Tinubu’s APC, as an different of asserting 2,731 as written on our photograph of the sheet, he read out “16,630”.

Then for Mr Obi’s birthday party (LP) the desire modified all once more – as an different of the 22,289 viewed on the sheet, he announced “10,784”, extra than halving his vote.

In accordance to the BBC, “we asked the electoral fee if we might perchance well furthermore confer with Dr Ariaga, nonetheless they would no longer give us his tiny print or reach out to him for us. We spoke to the election legit seated next to Dr Ariaga, nonetheless she told us she wasn’t approved to hunt the advice of with the click.

“So we sent a reporter to the Federal College of Education in Omoku, about two hours drive north of Port Harcourt, where he’d stated he labored when introducing himself.”

The Deputy Provost Moses Ekpa told the BBC: “From our data, every from our payroll and from our human resources, there is just not any one of these establish in our machine and we construct no longer know such an particular person.”

“We tried tracking him down on social media and one map or the other came all over one other Fb yarn for somebody in Port Harcourt, whose profile tiny print had the establish Dickson Ariaga.

“When we compared an image from this yarn to the tv photos of Dr Ariaga the utilize of Amazon Rekognition instrument, we done a match of 97.2%, indicating a extremely high chance they’re the identical man.

“Dr Ariaga did no longer reply to messages sent by us to this yarn. By reaching out to his Fb chums we did one map or the other scrape up to verify with a man who stated he turned into once a relative, who turned into once initially prepared to succor us nonetheless then did not return our calls.”

“We build these findings to Nigeria’s Autonomous Nationwide Electoral Rate (Inec). Johnson Sinikiem, INEC’s regional spokesman in Port Harcourt, told us that on account of a “pass shortage of time and personnel” that they had fundamental to lift on some of us without verifying their id paperwork.”

Referring to Dr Ariaga, he stated: “If he had presented himself as a lecturer from [the college in Omoku] and it is in every other case, then he is dishonest.”

“We also approached INEC’s headquarters in Abuja for a response to our findings of discrepancies in the consequences in Rivers Tell. We were told that they were unable to comment on account of ongoing upright challenges.

“Right here is appropriate one case in a single train in southern Nigeria where the proof components to the consequences having been manipulated. On their recognize, these altered results wouldn’t possess decisively swayed the final consequence of the presidential election. Bola Tinubu won the nationwide presidential vote by 1.8m votes over his nearest rival, Atiku Abubakar of the PDP.

“We’re soundless buying for Dr Ariaga to reply to the findings on this yarn.”