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Nigeria Decides 2019

‘Voter data by Nigeria’s INEC statistically impossible’

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SHOCKER! Zamfara APC won’t take part in 2019 elections —INEC

United Kingdom based newspaper, UK Guardian, is suspicious there are moves to massively rig the Nigerian general elections.

The international media platform said that the voter registration documents it got access to in the United Kingdom on February 15, a day to the earlier slated date for Nigeria’s presidential election, raises fears of mass rigging.

INEC had slated February 16, for presidential and National Assembly poll and March 2, for governorship and state House of Assembly election. It however announced Friday night, few hours to the presidential election, postponement of the exercise to February 23 and March 9, respectively.

The UK Guardian raised concerns over the number of new voters registered in Nigeria since January 2018, which has increased by almost exactly the same percentage in each of its states.

After analysing the voter data, the paper said the document raises fears that the results of the coming general elections could be open to mass rigging.

Incumbent Muhammadu Buhari of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), and major opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Atiku Abubakar, are major contenders in the race that has over 70 candidates vying for Nigeria’s presidency seat.

The report by the UK Guardian noted that 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 Independent National Electoral Commission– 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 per cent between April 2017 and January 2018, and by 7.7 per cent for the whole registration period ahead of Saturday’s election.

READ ALSO: CONFIRMED: INEC postpones elections

According to the paper, 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.

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