An investigation conducted by the BBC has revealed potential indications of manipulation in Nigeria’s presidential election results.

Bola Tinubu, the declared winner, is scheduled to be inaugurated on 29 May; however, the opposition is contesting this outcome.

The BBC’s findings have identified notable irregularities in Rivers state, a crucial contested region, although these irregularities are not substantial enough to alter the overall national result of the election that occurred in February.

Additionally, concerns have arisen regarding the identity of an election official who announced certain unexplained results.

According to BBC, After meticulously analyzing the voting tally sheets from more than 6,000 polling stations in Rivers state, where numerous complaints from the opposition were concentrated, a discrepancy has emerged.

They alleged that the official results in this particular state indicated a decisive majority in favor of Bola Tinubu from the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).

However, upon their own calculations, it appears that Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) had garnered the highest number of votes in the state, surpassing Tinubu by a significant margin.

The investigation has alleged that there was a notable increase of approximately 106,000 votes in Mr. Tinubu’s official declaration compared to the tally obtained from our polling station analysis.

This increase nearly doubled his overall vote count in the state. Conversely, Mr. Obi’s vote count had decreased by over 50,000 in comparison.

They emphasized that despite conducting a thorough search on the election website for all 6,866 polling stations in Rivers state, complete results were not obtainable. Some results were incorrectly uploaded or missing even after a month had passed since the polling date.

Additionally, for approximately 5% of the polling stations, the photos of the tally sheets were too blurry to decipher according to the investigation.

Furthermore, the investigation uncovered that in an additional 17% of polling stations, no results were available at all. This could be attributed to various reasons, such as security concerns or the failure of voting materials to arrive. Technical difficulties also hindered officials from uploading the required documents.

It is evident that the final official results would have included more polling stations than those considered in the BBC investigation.

However, these additional tally sheets would have increased the vote totals for each party, rather than decreasing them.

Surprisingly, the investigation revealed that there was a significant decline in votes for Peter Obi’s Labour Party in Rivers state as indicated by the official result.

The question remains: How can the sharp decrease in Peter Obi’s votes, as reflected in the official result, be explained given the circumstances?

Two specific areas drew notable attention during the investigation. The first was the Oyigbo local government area where the officially announced results indicated that Bola Tinubu’s vote count was six times higher compared to the BBC’s tally from the polling stations and In contrast, Peter Obi’s votes had been reduced by half according to the official results.

The second local government area that the BBC investigation identified as having major discrepancies was Obio/Akpor, located in close proximity to Oyigbo. The investigation revealed that the official result for Mr. Tinubu showed a vote count of 80,239, while the BBC counted just 17,293 votes from the polling station tallies.

Conversely, the official count for Mr. Obi was only 3,829 votes, whereas the BBC’s tally sheets indicated a staggering 74,033 votes for him.

According to the BBC, all the polling station sheets were collated at the local government (LGA) headquarters.

During the investigation, the BBC team discovered an official election document that contained the collated votes for the Oyigbo area.

The document was signed by an election official and several party agents, indicating its authenticity and credibility.

According to the investigation, Multiple photographs of the document were taken and shared on various social media accounts. The numbers recorded in this document closely aligned with the BBC’s own tallies for the two leading candidates, Obi and Tinubu.

It further States that the document was likely one of the 23 collation sheets from the local government areas (LGAs) in Rivers state, which were taken to the state capital, Port Harcourt, for the official declaration of results.

According to them, The official announcement took place on 27 February and was broadcast live on television.

Dr. Dickson Ariaga, the election official from Oyigbo, introduced himself and stated that he worked for the Federal College of Education in Omoku.

Although the word “Omoku” on the recording is unclear, it is important to mention that there is only one Federal College of Education in Rivers state.

Dr. Ariaga proceeded to read out the results for each party in alphabetical order, including the smaller parties. This recording provides additional evidence regarding the announcement of the results in Oyigbo.

During the live announcement, according to BBC, it was observed that the numbers mentioned by Dr. Ariaga did not align with the figures recorded on the collation sheet obtained by the BBC.

Specifically, when he reached Mr. Tinubu’s APC, instead of stating the figure of 2,731 as seen in the photograph of the sheet, he announced a significantly higher number of “16,630.” Similarly, for Mr. Obi’s party (LP), the announced figure differed from the number on the sheet.

Instead of the recorded 22,289 votes, Dr. Ariaga declared “10,784,” which resulted in more than halving Obi’s vote count.

Despite the BBC’s efforts to obtain further information and clarification, the electoral commission declined to provide the details of Dr. Ariaga or facilitate an interview with him on the matter.

However, the BBC managed to speak with the election official who was seated next to Dr. Ariaga during the announcement. Unfortunately, she stated that she was not authorized to speak to the press.

To gather more information, a reporter from the BBC was sent to the Federal College of Education in Omoku, located approximately two hours north of Port Harcourt, where Dr. Ariaga claimed to work during his introduction. The Deputy Provost, Moses Ekpa, was interviewed by the BBC.

He stated that based on their records, including payroll and human resources, there is no individual by the name of Dr. Ariaga in their system, and they have no knowledge of such a person being associated with the institution.

He said “From our records, both from our payroll and from our human resources, there is no such a name in our system and we don’t know such a person.”

In an attempt to track down Dr. Ariaga, the BBC conducted a search on social media platforms and came across another Facebook account bearing the name Dickson Ariaga, which listed Port Harcourt as the location.

To verify the connection, the BBC utilized Amazon Rekognition software to compare an image from this account with television footage of Dr. Ariaga. The software indicated a match of 97.2%, suggesting a high probability that they are the same individual.

Despite attempts to contact Dr. Ariaga through this Facebook account, he did not respond to the messages sent by the BBC. However, the BBC managed to reach out to some of his Facebook friends in an effort to gather more information.

Eventually, they were able to speak to a man who claimed to be a relative of Dr. Ariaga. Initially, he expressed willingness to assist the BBC, but later on, he did not return their calls, leaving the investigation with unresolved leads.

Upon presenting these findings to Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the BBC received a response from Johnson Sinikiem, Inec’s regional spokesman in Port Harcourt. Sinikiem explained that due to a “gross shortage of time and personnel,” there were instances where individuals were employed without proper verification of their identity documents.

Regarding Dr. Ariaga specifically, Sinikiem acknowledged that if Ariaga had presented himself as a lecturer from the college in Omoku, but it turned out to be false, then he would be considered dishonest.

He said “If he had presented himself as a lecturer from [the college in Omoku] and it’s otherwise, then he is dishonest.”

In addition to seeking a response from Inec’s regional spokesperson, the BBC also approached Inec’s headquarters in Abuja regarding the discrepancies found in the results in Rivers state. However, the response received was that they were unable to comment on the matter due to ongoing legal challenges.

The case highlighted by the BBC investigation in Rivers state is just one example that raises concerns about potential manipulation of election results.

However, the search for Dr. Ariaga continues as the BBC awaits his response to the findings presented in their report. Obtaining his perspective and clarifications could provide valuable insights and contribute to a better understanding of the situation.

@BBC News (World)