•Osigwe, Erojikwe and Ikwuazom
Following the declaration of Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Afam Osigwe as the president-elect of the Nigerian Bar Association, his opponents in the polls have questioned the integrity of the process and called for an audit.
The first runner-up, Tobenna Erojikwe who was said to have polled 10998 as against Osigwe’s 20,435, said he has “reasonable and well-informed basis to believe that the electoral process and the election were not credible or satisfactory”, reports Channels TV.
In a statement dated July 21, 2024 and personally signed by him, Erojikwe noted that at three different times before the polls, he had cause to write to the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, ECNBA, to express concerns and highlight certain breaches and irregularities surrounding the election.
He said, “My initial complaint centred on the opaqueness of the selection process for the election service providers and the lack of information to enable us to make a fully informed assessment of the shortlisted service providers.This call led to the ECNBA carrying out a fresh bidding exercise that resulted in the selection of Election Buddy”.
“By another letter dated 4 June 2024, I raised concerns about the provisions of the guidelines for the election set out in the NBA Constitution 2015 (as amended) which the ECNBA had obeyed in disobedience including the failure to provide voting guidelines and a voters’ list within the timeframe stipulated by the NBA Constitution.
“I repeated this call in my last letter of 19 July 2024, and it was not until 4 hours before the commencement of polls that the ECNBA published the full list of eligible voters in defiance of the provisions of Paragraph 9 of Part V of Second Schedule to the NBA Constitution which provides in mandatory terms that the ECNBA shall publish the full list of voters at least 45 (forty-five) clear days before the date of the election”.
Erojikwe said if the breaches and irregularities were restricted to the process leading up to the elections, and the election was conducted in a credible manner, it might have been easier to overlook them.
He detailed about five areas where according to him the conduct of the election fell far short of expected technical standards and the spirit/intendment of the NBA Constitution.
“Firstly, while the ECNBA and the service provider took the admirable decision to permit live viewing of the election results, the same decision exposed the rare phenomenon where the number of votes ascribed to the winning candidate steadily increased in an almost exact geometric progression at the top of each hour for nearly the entirety of the election in a manner which, our cyber analysts professionally believe, is demonstrative of a pre-programming of votes.
“Secondly, our agents who closely monitored the election results reported, and the records available to us show, that the number of votes did not tally. At different times, the sum of the votes cast for the candidates was either in excess of, or less than, the total votes tallied at the relevant time. For a process where the tallying is automatic, such statistical discrepancy is inexplicable. A cursory look at the results at different times will confirm this.
“Thirdly, while the actual voting took place on the platform provided by Election Buddy i.e. electionbuddy.com, the live election results were exhibited by a completely different and unrelated platform, go.ecnba.org. Technical experts engaged by me find this rather curious and strange, and it questions the integrity of the results. As a technical matter, it leads to irresistible inference that the results purportedly projected on the ecnba.org platform as live results of the election were simulated results that may, likely, be different from those at the backend servers of Election Buddy.
“Fourthly, and very fundamentally too, many of our supporters reported that they woke up to emails acknowledging that their votes had been submitted even before they had the opportunity to cast their votes. Upon complaining, some of these supporters subsequently received another link to cast their votes. In other words, there were demonstrable instances of double-voting or at least data manipulation.
“Lastly, despite the fact that the election was widely advertised to commence by 12:00am and end by 11:59pm on Saturday 20 July 2024, voting continued into the early hours of Sunday 21 July 2024 and the numbers of votes continued to increase.
“The foregoing and more have demonstrated that the fears that I expressed in the build-up to the elections were not unfounded and the election process might have been manipulated to achieve a predetermined outcome.”
Erojikwe said for the above reasons, he is unable to accept the election result announced by the ECNBA and instead seeks an official audit of the election result in accordance with the provisions of Paragraph 8(c), Part 2, Second Schedule of the NBA Constitution.
He said this step has become necessary to ensure full faith and confidence in the electoral process within the NBA.
Similarly, the Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Chukwuka Ikwuazom who was said to have polled 9018 votes to emerge as the 2nd runner-up, has also requested access to critical information and documents related to the elections.
In a letter he signed and addressed to ECNBA chairman, Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Oluseun Abimbola, Ikwuazom said his request is “prompted by several concerning anomalies and irregularities observed during the electoral process”.
Ikwuazom who had sensationally pulled out of the race during the elections, said he and his team observed four anomalies namely; identity theft of voters & potential double voting, Discrepancies in Vote Display and Update, Suspicious Vote Increase Patterns and Discrepancies in Vote Patterns.
He therefore made a formal request to be provided within 48 hours with full access to the server and application log files used during the election period, complete database records, including voter information and voting transactions among other information.
A part of his letter reads, “My team and I noted the following issues, among others, that warrant attention:
“Identity Theft of Voters and Potential Double-Voting: Multiple voters reported being unable to cast their ballots as the system indicated they had already voted when they had not. Upon complaining, some of these supporters subsequently received another link to cast their votes. This situation demonstrates clear instances of either double-voting or possible data manipulation. These occurrences raise serious concerns about the voter database’s integrity, the security of the voting process, and the potential for unauthorized manipulation of voting records.
“Discrepancies in Vote Display and Update: During the election, it was observed that the vote viewing portal (https://go.ecnba.org/results/) merely displayed Portable Network Graphics (PNG) images that were uploaded at intervals rather than a page directly and automatically accessing data from a primary database/election platform (electionbuddy.com). Furthermore, despite the page being programmed to refresh every minute, it often required two or more refreshes for voter data to update. This significant lag between the display portal and the originating system raises concerns about the real-time accuracy of the displayed results and the potential for data manipulation between systems.
“Suspicious Vote Increase Pattern: Throughout the entirety of the election, the number of votes attributed to the winning candidate exhibited a steady increase in an almost exact geometric progression at the top of each hour. This pattern is strongly indicative of a pre-programmed vote allocation, rather than a natural accumulation of votes. This observation raises serious concerns about the authenticity of the vote-counting process and the overall integrity of the election results.
“Discrepancies in Vote Patterns: The reported voting figures show significant inconsistencies with the actual votes cast by my supporters. The voting patterns suggest a potential manipulation of the system to favour a predetermined outcome.”
These issues, he argued, undermine the election’s credibility and necessitate a thorough examination of the electoral process and systems.
