The Osun State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the Chief Press Secretary to the Governor Gboyega Oyetola, Ismail Omipidan, have disagreed over the report of an election observer group, Yiaga Africa, on the July 16 governorship poll.
Relying on the report presented by Yiaga’s Executive Director, Samson Itodo, at a stakeholders’ conference the group organised in Abuja, where it launched the election result analysis, Omipidan insisted that the results of the Osun governorship poll were affected by irregularities.
Omipidan had referred to the complaint of blurred results sheets uploaded to INEC server.
He also referred to the analysis on the Osun PVC collection data which revealed that the total number of PVCs collected for 30 polling units was greater than the total number of registered voters in those polling units, declaring that his principal, Gboyega Oyetola, only lost vote count, not the election.
Omipidan further said, “For the purpose of Osun election, INEC had prescribed the BVAS (Bimodal Voters Accreditation System) as the only credible means of accreditation. But from the report we got from the field, in many of the polling units, BVAS was not used appropriately. It didn’t capture the number of accredited voters.
“But we did not rely mainly on the report we got from our poling agents. We also demanded by law for a CTC of the report of BVAS from INEC, and we got it.
“The CTC of the report of BVAS across 10 Local Governments in 749 polling units showed that accreditation through BVAS was less than the number of votes cast in those units.”
But reacting, Deputy Director General, Adeleke Campaign Organisation, Mr.Kolapo Alimi, on Wednesday said Yiaga’s report should be disregarded.
According to him, YIAGA had previously commended the election after the poll, noting that the election was free and fair, adding that it raised suspicion that the same organisation that had earlier commended the poll could raise issues against the election two months after.
Alimi said, “Their report complained about 30 polling units across 12 LGAs. They complained of discrepancies between the number of PVCs collected and several people who voted. They are not even talking about over-voting. Yiaga has forgotten that people were still collecting PVC until Thursday which preceded the election. Their report doesn’t affect the petition before the Tribunal.
“The issue is that there are some units which did not synchronise on the server of INEC. The numbers of accredited voters were sent to the server but there are some units which did not synchronise on the server because two or more BVAS are used. They want to capitalise on that one because the records have not been synchronized on the server. This occurred in about 1,700 units and it occurred more where APC won, numbering about 1000 polling units.
“This is not as a result of any manipulation but because of network issue that the multiple BVAS used on Election Day failed to be uploaded on the server.”