The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has dismissed allegations of result manipulation at Kuroko Health Centre polling unit in Yangoji Ward, Kwali Area Council, during Saturday’s elections.
In a statement, the FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner, Aminu Idris, described the claims circulating online as false and misleading.
According to the reports, the polling unit allegedly recorded 1,219 votes for a political party despite having only 345 registered voters and 213 accredited voters.
However, Idris clarified that the official result showed the party scored 121 votes, not 1,219 as widely shared on social media.
“The Commission categorically states that the claim of manipulation or falsification is untrue and misleading,” he said.
He explained that a clerical error initially occurred when the presiding officer recorded 122 votes for the party after sorting and counting.
“On tallying everything, she noticed there was an overshoot by one,” Idris stated.
The ballots were subsequently recounted in the presence of party agents, confirming the correct figure as 121 votes. The presiding officer corrected the entry on the result sheet by cancelling the incorrect figure and inserting the accurate one, including the figure written in words.
Idris noted that the corrected result was uploaded to the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) and used during collation. Party agents present at the polling unit reportedly signed the result sheet to affirm its accuracy.
He stressed that 121 votes — not 1,219 — were used at both the ward and area council collation stages.
The REC further explained that INEC’s result management system makes such alleged manipulation technically impossible. He said presiding officers are required to upload Form EC8A to IReV and enter results directly into the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) device.
According to him, the BVAS system performs validation checks to ensure total votes do not exceed the number of accredited voters, automatically flagging and rejecting cases of over-voting.
“In this case, accredited voters were 213, and the score entered for the party was 121. If 1,219 votes had been entered, BVAS would have rejected it instantly,” Idris explained.
He added that any discrepancy would have been flagged at multiple stages of collation, none of which occurred.
Describing IReV as a transparency tool that mirrors results uploaded directly from polling units, Idris maintained that the result relied upon for collation was consistent with BVAS data and accreditation figures.
