RE: SHOCKER: ‘13.5m Nigerians’ voted manually in 2015 presidential poll — and APC got most of those votes – Why this conclusion is misleading

Original article available at: 

https://www.thecable.ng/shocker-13-5m-nigerians-voted-without-pvc-in-2015

The above written article makes a bold case that 13.5m Nigerians voted manually in 2015 and that this largely favoured the APC. The main argument put forward is that the states which were won by the APC had the highest number of PVC only accreditations which it refers to as manual accreditations. The following paragraphs is lifted directly from the said article. “Out of this number, 10,184,720 votes are from states won by Buhari and 3,351,591 votes came from states won by Jonathan, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, representing 75 percent and 25 percent of accredited voters respectively.” This simplistic approach gives an impression that one party overwhelmingly benefitted from manual accreditation over others. However we have taken a look at the data and made assessments to see if this assertion is factual, accurate and representative of the actual situation.

Firstly it is important to note that manual accreditation is wrongly defined in the said article therefore creating chasms into the very foundation of the entire article. The article refers to manual accreditation as being equal to 13.5m which looking at the data from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) this figure (exact is 13,377,340) actually refers to the total number of voters accredited using PVC only accreditation. It’s important to state that this is still biometric accreditation meaning that permanent voter cards were presented and authenticated before voters were allowed to vote. While this is not full biometric voter accreditation it is definitely not manual accreditation because the PVCs were authenticated by the smart card reader. What this means is that the voters were actually at the polling units in person. Therefore characterizing these as manual accreditations is not only factually incorrect, it is misleading and should be corrected immediately.

Secondly taking a look at the actual number of manual accreditations reveals exactly the opposite of what this article is suggesting. As seen from the INEC 2015 Presidential Election March 28, 2015 Declaration of Results the total number of voters accredited were 31,746,490. The total number of full-biometric and PVC only biometric accreditation were 23,643,479. The meaning of this is that there were 8,103,011 voters who were accredited without any form of biometric method at all (i.e. had no contact with the smart card reader). These are the actual manual accreditations because they just involved using a pen to tick a voter register. There is no way to actually prove if this 8,103,011 actually came to the polling unit or not. This figure should have been the focus of the above mentioned article since they sought to shed light on manual accreditation.

Looking at this data further it is clear that following the argument of the mentioned article the six of the top ten states that were involved in manual accreditation were won by the PDP. In addition there were a total of 5,389,648 accredited by voters in states won by the PDP is equivalent to 66.5% while a total of 2,713,363 voters were accredited in states won by the APC which translates to 33.5% of the total manual accreditations. It can be seen that this is clearly opposite to what the article in question intended to pass across.

Table showing break down of voter accreditation figures from the 2015 Nigerian Presidential Election

S/No.	STATE	Total Accredited Voters	FULL BIOMETRIC ACCRD	CARD-ONLY ACCRD	Full Manual Accreditation
1	ABIA	442,538	218,599	102,401	121,538
2	ADAMAWA	709,993	309,513	296,733	103,747
3	AKWA IBOM	1,074,070	234,141	288,775	551,154
4	ANAMBRA	774,430	67,578	89,982	616,870
5	BAUCHI	1,094,069	396,435	627,048	70,586
6	BAYELSA	384,789	42,814	143,296	198,679
7	BENUE	754,634	368,627	347,673	38,334
8	BORNO	544,759	138,629	317,933	88,197
9	CROSS RIVER	500,577	154,687	129,381	216,509
10	DELTA	1,350,914	342,507	226,266	782,141
11	EBONYI	425,301	145,985	213,543	65,773
12	EDO	599,166	306,547	237,958	54,661
13	EKITI	323,739	160,870	165,000	(2,131)
14	ENUGU	616,112	130,814	146,730	338,568
15	FCT	344,056	113,377	65,102	165,577
16	GOMBE	515,828	267,609	237,139	11,080
17	IMO	801,712	84,780	151,234	565,698
18	JIGAWA	1,153,428	382,900	744,457	26,071
19	KADUNA	1,746,031	681,748	800,112	264,171
20	KANO	2,364,434	288,644	1,358,537	717,253
21	KATSINA	1,578,646	398,843	1,045,994	133,809
22	KEBBI	792,817	246,240	496,565	50,012
23	KOGI	476,839	223,189	162,763	90,887
24	KWARA	489,360	109,592	302,904	76,864
25	LAGOS	1,678,754	1,047,338	341,151	290,265
26	NASARAWA	562,959	97,933	360,596	104,430
27	NIGER	933,607	369,157	492,870	71,580
28	OGUN	594,975	299,138	239,050	56,787
29	ONDO	618,040	305,512	263,453	49,075
30	OSUN	683,169	400,809	255,460	26,900
31	OYO	1,073,849	548,007	384,316	141,526
32	PLATEAU	1,076,833	434,695	482,788	159,350
33	RIVERS	1,643,409	152,975	158,844	1,331,590
34	SOKOTO	988,899	175,317	588,730	224,852
35	TARABA	638,578	129,641	389,696	119,241
36	YOBE	520,127	138,692	302,965	78,470
37	ZAMFARA	875,049	193,286	578,866	102,897
		31,746,490	10,107,168	13,536,311	8,103,011

What has been explained clearly shows that this article is not factual. However the clarifications made above are not to say that one party benefited from manual accreditation over another but to correct the errors in the said publication. The following paragraphs shed more light into why it is very difficult to accurately ascertain in the truest sense which party benefited from manual accreditation the most. This is important because sentiments in the public that one party benefitted more than another is precarious for the forthcoming 2019 General elections.

At this point, it is first important to note that there is no way to tell if those who did not use biometric card reader voted for either APC or PDP since voting is anonymous. The implication is that no one knows whether a person who voted for APC or PDP was manually or biometrically accredited. Not even the Independent National Electoral Commission has this sort of information because voting is done by secret ballot. This is critical because it lays the primary foundation that there is no quantitative method to determine those who actually ended up voting for which party.

In addition there were gaps between those who were accredited (either manually or biometrically) and those who actually voted. It is not possible to know the percentage of those who were accredited manually who eventually voted for a particular party neither is it possible to know the same for those who were biometrically accredited. This further makes it impossible to accurately say which party if any benefited more from manual accreditation country wide.

Going further, the fact that a candidate won a state cannot accurately infer that that means that more manual accreditations favoured him or her. The problem is that winning a state is a broad term which could be very misleading. For example there are states where a candidate won by over 90% of votes while other states with less than 5% of the vote in the state. So while a candidate may have won in both states it definitely could not be inferred that he/she benefited more from manual accreditation since there is no accurate way of distributing the votes cast amongst those who were accredited manually.

For example PDP won the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) with 157,195 votes as compared to APC's 146,399 votes.  165,577 voters were accredited manually. It is impossible to know (except perhaps by forensics) how this 165,577 voters were distributed amongst the votes received by both parties as this information is not available. While former President Jonathan won the FCT it would be misleading to suggest that he benefited more from the manual accreditations than the voters who voted for President Buhari and there is no way to prove this.

Another example is Adamawa state which was won by President Buhari with 374,701 as compared to President Goodluck Jonathan's 251,664. There were 103,747 manual accreditations and it would not be possible to apportion these accurately to the APC, PDP or any other party. As such it cannot be inferred that these manual registrations benefited one candidate or party over another.

In a state like Kano 717,253 were accredited manually. APC scored 1,903,999 votes while PDP garnered 215,779 votes. A total of 2,364,434 were accredited in Kano altogether. There are 244,656 citizens who did not vote but were accredited in Kano. How many of these were accredited manually is not known. While it is clear that in a state like Kano a greater percentage of citizens who were accredited manually also voted for the APC because of the sheer magnitude of the difference in the votes received by the APC and the PDP, it is still not possible to say exactly by what extent. This same scenario goes for Rivers State where there were 1,331,590 voters who were accredited manually. PDP won this state by receiving 1,487,075 while APC garnered 69,238 votes. Clearly even if it is assumed that all the APC votes were by manual accreditation (which is not possible to prove), there would still be over 1.4 million votes received by the PDP. While the cases of Kano and Rivers could permit one to make general deductions that a particular party benefited more in those particular states, the extent is still not known and cannot be known. Because the majority of states do not have such massive voter disparity for the APC and PDP it would be inaccurate to make conclusions on these states and therefore the entire nation.

The summary is that while both the APC and PDP benefited from manual accreditations it is not possible to prove the extent of this conclusively and quantitatively because there is no data available anywhere to achieve this. Since all voting is anonymous there is no way of knowing if a manually accredited voter voted for APC, PDP or any other party. Deducing this with broad comparisons is not scientific, representative or accurate. This sort of loose and wide scale generalisations should be avoided as much as possible because Nigeria is in a tense political climate and every effort should be made not to inflame the situation especially with inconclusive data.

Table showing accreditation and votes received by APC and PDP during the 2015 Nigerian Presidential Election

S/No.	STATE	Total Accredited Voters	FULL BIOMETRIC ACCRD	CARD-ONLY ACCRD	TOTAL	Total Votes Cast	Votes received by APC	Votes received by PDP
1	ABIA	442,538	218,599	102,401	321,000	401,049	13,394	368,303
2	ADAMAWA	709,993	309,513	296,733	606,246	661,210	374,701	251,664
3	AKWA IBOM	1,074,070	234,141	288,775	522,916	1,028,551	58,411	953,304
4	ANAMBRA	774,430	67,578	89,982	157,560	703,409	17,926	660,762
5	BAUCHI	1,094,069	396,435	627,048	1,023,483	1,039,775	931,598	86,085
6	BAYELSA	384,789	42,814	143,296	186,110	371,739	5,194	361,209
7	BENUE	754,634	368,627	347,673	716,300	703,131	373,961	303,737
8	BORNO	544,759	138,629	317,933	456,562	515,008	473,543	25,640
9	CROSS RIVER	500,577	154,687	129,381	284,068	465,906	28,368	414,863
10	DELTA	1,350,914	342,507	226,266	568,773	1,284,848	48,910	1,211,405
11	EBONYI	425,301	145,985	213,543	359,528	393,337	19,518	323,653
12	EDO	599,166	306,547	237,958	544,505	522,785	208,469	286,869
13	EKITI	323,739	160,870	165,000	325,870	309,445	120,331	176,466
14	ENUGU	616,112	130,814	146,730	277,544	585,632	14,157	553,003
15	FCT	344,056	113,377	65,102	178,479	316,015	146,399	157,195
16	GOMBE	515,828	267,609	237,139	504,748	473,444	361,245	96,873
17	IMO	801,712	84,780	151,234	236,014	731,921	133,253	559,185
18	JIGAWA	1,153,428	382,900	744,457	1,127,357	1,071,889	885,988	142,904
19	KADUNA	1,746,031	681,748	800,112	1,481,860	1,650,201	1,127,760	484,085
20	KANO	2,364,434	288,644	1,358,537	1,647,181	2,172,447	1,903,999	215,779
21	KATSINA	1,578,646	398,843	1,045,994	1,444,837	1,481,714	1,345,441	98,937
22	KEBBI	792,817	246,240	496,565	742,805	715,122	567,883	100,972
23	KOGI	476,839	223,189	162,763	385,952	439,287	264,851	149,987
24	KWARA	489,360	109,592	302,904	412,496	461,401	302,146	132,602
25	LAGOS	1,678,754	1,047,338	341,151	1,388,489	1,485,975	792,460	632,327
26	NASARAWA	562,959	97,933	360,596	458,529	521,641	236,838	273,460
27	NIGER	933,607	369,157	492,870	862,027	844,683	657,678	149,222
28	OGUN	594,975	299,138	239,050	538,188	559,613	308,290	207,950
29	ONDO	618,040	305,512	263,453	568,965	582,435	299,889	251,368
30	OSUN	683,169	400,809	255,460	656,269	663,373	383,603	249,929
31	OYO	1,073,849	548,007	384,316	932,323	928,606	528,620	303,376
32	PLATEAU	1,076,833	434,695	482,788	917,483	1,000,692	429,140	549,615
33	RIVERS	1,643,409	152,975	158,844	311,819	1,584,768	69,238	1,487,075
34	SOKOTO	988,899	175,317	588,730	764,047	876,369	671,926	152,199
35	TARABA	638,578	129,641	389,696	519,337	602,716	261,326	310,800
36	YOBE	520,127	138,692	302,965	441,657	491,767	446,265	25,526
37	ZAMFARA	875,049	193,286	578,866	772,152	780,179	612,202	144,833
		31,746,490	10,107,168	13,536,311	23,643,479	29,422,083	15,424,921	12,853,162