Voters in Nigeria, Africa’s biggest country by population, go to the polls on Saturday to choose between the incumbent Muhammadu Buhari, his main rival, Atiku Abubakar and more than 70 other candidates.
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. Elsewhere, 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.
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 presidential election could be open to mass rigging.
Plotted on a scatter line graph, there was a 0.99 correlation across all the states, without a single outlier. According to three separate data analysts, the parity cannot be a coincidence, and two of them called it a “statistical impossibility”. “Only God works that closely,” one said.
But other observers said there were other possible explanations for the correlation, including demographics.
“In itself, it’s not an indicator of any kind of electoral malpractice or manipulation,” said economist Nonso Obikili. He said the correlation in the registration figures across states was “what you would expect, because demographic changes don’t happen very quickly”.
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.
Additional data seen by the Guardian shows irregularities in registration for the 2015 election in which Buhari came to power, until now considered to have been free and fair.
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 from 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.
Smartcard 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 set of results appears to have disappeared from the INEC’s website two months ago, along with all others relating to the 2015 poll.
Nigerian elections have a long history of rigging, 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 manipulation mechanisms with them.
If free and fair, the election is expected to be very close, with many Nigerians either proclaiming themselves to be “Atikulated” and fed up with the state of the economy or chanting “Sai Buhari”, a term of respect used by those vigorously defending the president’s record.
In the ancient northern city of Kano, a Buhari stronghold, men in embroidered kaftan robes and colourful caps said they were voting for Buhari, while opposition billboards had been torn down in the streets. Innocent Okpanachi, an architect in Abuja, said: “The entire system is bad. You vote for who will unite the country.”
The Guardian