SV: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UK's Guardian Newspaper Indicts Nigeria's Electoral Commission

​I am grateful to Mr. Jonathan Okeke for demanding a direct link to the Guardian article retitled by 'unbiased' Chidi Anthony Okpara as UK's Guardian Newspaper Indicts Nigeria's Electoral Commission. Now after  perusing the link to the Guardian which Mr. Opara has reproduced with indication, Courtesy: Guardian (UK), I observed that the said article was originally written by Ruth Maclean and Eromo Egbejule in Abuja for the UK Guardian newspaper and published on Friday, 15 February 2019 at 21:23 hours GMT, some 11 hours before the scheduled 16 February 2019 general elections was to begin. In reality and contrary to the misleading and PDP sympathetic title by Mr Opara - UK's Guardian Newspaper Indicts Nigeria's Electoral Commission - Ruth Maclean and Eromo Egbejule titled their  article thus, Nigerians set to go to polls in referendum on Buhari's first term. Their article began with a sub-title : Concerns raised over registration data on eve of vote in corruption plagued country. According paragraph 4 of the article in the link to the Guardian UK, the following could be read, "As Nigerians prepared to cast their votes, data analysts raised concerns about the number of new voters registered since January 2018, which they said increased by almost exactly the same percentage in each of the country's states, and suggested that the results of Saturday's election could be open to mass rigging." In paragraph 8, the author of the article wrote inductively, "If some of the new voters registered are fake, it could imply meddling at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), though it is unclear whether it would be the ruling party or the opposition that would stand to benefit." Concluding, the authors informed readers thus, "This article was amended on 15 February to reflect doubts over the way in which analysts who spoke to the Guardian had interpreted new voter registration data for the 2019 election."

​The contents in the Guardian link supplied by Chidi Anthony Opara differ completely from the reproduced and edited version posted below by Mr Opara. It is not only that paragraph 4 has become paragraph 1 in Mr Opara's version but the contents have dishonestly been altered by Mr. Opara when he wrote, "The number of new voters registered in Nigeria since January 2018 has increased by almost exactly the same percentage in each of its states, according to the documents seen and analysed by the Guardian, raising fears that the results of Saturday's election could be open to mass rigging." The original authors never claimed that the Guardian had seen and analysed documents as inserted by Chidi Anthony Opara in his own reproduced and edited version of this article which I now doubt originated from the real Guardian (UK). However, at the end of the article, the authors confessed that analysts had spoken to the Guardian which is quiet different from the Guardian self seeing and analysing documents.

​Mr. Opara's paragraph 3 in which the increase in the number of registered voters was questioned could not be found in the supplied link to the Guardian. In all past Nigerian elections, registered voters have always been more than the number of people who voted on election day. In the 27 February 1999 Presidential elections, recorded registered voters were 57,938,945 whereas recorded voters turnout were 30,280,052; in 2003, recorded registered voters were 60,823,022 and voters turnout were 42,081,735; in 2007, registered voters were 61,567, 036 and voters turnout were not available in that Obasanjo's do or die election. However, total valid votes cast were 35,397,517; and in 2011 elections, 73,528,040 and voters turnout were 39,469,484. If we now agree with Mr. Opara's insinuation, which he attributed to the Guardian (UK), that the increase in the registration of voters in the 2019 elections to 84,004,084 is aimed at rigging, the victory of Goodluck Jonathan in the 2011 presidential elections must have been due to rigging because there was 11,961,012 increase of registered voters when compared with 2007. Since voters turnout have always been a little over 50% of registered voters in Nigeria, it does not make sense to attribute large number of registered voters to planned election rigging as internet miscreants would want people to believe. The article in the Guardian (UK) was hijacked and its contents were distorted by Nigerian internet fraudsters as a part of their plan to discredit in advance the INEC and the February 16, 2019 scheduled elections. Unfortunately for the Nigerian internet fraudsters, posing as Guardian analysts, the election was postponed when it was too late for them to withdraw the falsified Guardian article. It is very disappointing to note that Mr. Opara was aware of the falsified Guardian article which was why he did not post the link to the article direct on the forum as he used to do but instead re-edited the fraudulent article with his own inserted words. Mr Chidi Anthony Opara knows quiet well that the Guardian (UK) could never under any circumstance have written : As Nigerians prepared to cast their votes, ..//.. as if the election had already taken place, instead of 'As Nigerians prepare to cast their votes,' because election was yet to take place.  

S. Kadiri  

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Från: usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com <usaafricadialogue@googlegroups.com> för Chidi Anthony Opara, FIIM <chidi.opara@gmail.com>
Skickat: den 17 februari 2019 10:30
Till: USA African Dialogue Series
Ämne: USA Africa Dialogue Series - UK's Guardian Newspaper Indicts Nigeria's Electoral Commission

 

Courtesy: Guardian (UK)

The number of new voters registered in Nigeria since January 2018 has increased by almost exactly the same percentage in each of its states, according to documents seen and analysed by the Guardian, raising fears that the results of Saturday's presidential election could be open to mass rigging.

Voters in Africa's biggest country by population will choose between the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari, his main rival Atiku Abubakar, and more than 70 other candidates.

Since the last presidential election in 2015, many more people have become eligible to vote, and many others have registered to take part in the polls for the first time. About 10 million new voters signed up between January 2018 and early 2019 – according to data released by the electoral commission (INEC) – twice the number that signed up in the first nine months of registration, between April 2017 and January 2018.

But analysis of the data for each of the country's 36 states and its capital shows that INEC has increased the number of new registered voters by almost exactly the same percentage across all states. The correlation is a "statistical impossibility" and does not reflect Nigeria's demographic changes, according to data analysts working with the Guardian. Additional data seen by the Guardian also shows irregularities in registration for the 2015 election, until now considered to have been free and fair.

On average, voter registration in each state increased by 2.2% between April 2017 and January 2018, and by 7.7% for the whole registration period ahead of Saturday's election.

Plotted on a scatter line graph, there is a 0.99 correlation across all the states, without a single outlier. According to three separate data analysts, the parity cannot be a coincidence. "Only God works that closely," one analyst said. If some of the new voters registered are fake it would imply meddling at the electoral commission, though it is unclear whether it would be the ruling party or the opposition that would stand to benefit.

Saturday's election is seen as a referendum on Buhari's first term, which has been marred by his prolonged absence due to illness, a weak economy, and the government's failure to effectively tackle corruption and insecurity.

A faction of Boko Haram attacked a state governor's convoy on Tuesday, killing four people and stealing vehicles; on the same day, 15 people were crushed to death at a ruling party rally in eastern Port Harcourt. On Thursday, 14 sacks of ballot papers were intercepted in Kano state – though police said they were merely "specimen" papers to educate voters.

There have also been reports that the privacy of citizens may have been compromised after INEC and the Nigerian communications commission allegedly allowed the ruling party to access personal data.

The 2015 election in which Buhari came to power was widely held to be free and fair. However, an analysis of separate figures shows that manipulation may have happened in favour of Buhari's party, which was running in opposition to Goodluck Jonathan's People's Democratic party.

A clue may have been dropped last July when the INEC, perhaps inadvertently, publicly referenced a different set of results to the one on which Buhari's victory was based.

Both documents showed 29.4 million votes were cast. But according to the original results, 31.7 million accredited voters participated in the election, whereas in the second set of results that figure dropped to 23.6 million.

The discrepancy suggests an additional 6 million accredited voters, far more than the APC's winning margin – as per the original result set – of 2.6 million votes.

Smart-card readers were used for the first time in 2015 and the second set of results was released in response to widespread criticism after the new technology malfunctioned, forcing millions of voters including Jonathan to use the manual process. The second result set appears to have disappeared from INEC's website two months ago, along with all others relating to the 2015 poll.

There is frequently rigging in Nigerian elections, and it is not usually limited to whichever side happens to be in power at the time. Powerful politicians move fluidly between the two main parties, taking support and rigging mechanisms with them.

Buhari's party chief may have revealed the truth with a slip of the tongue at a press conference in September.

"For democracy to flourish, only people who can accept the pain of rigging – sorry, defeat – should participate in an election," said Adams Oshiomhole.

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Chidi Anthony Opara is a "Life Time Achievement" Awardee, Registered Freight Forwarder, Professional Fellow Of Institute Of Information Managerment, Africa, Poet and Publisher of PublicInformationProjects

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