By Tobias Lengnan Dapam
To ensure integrity in the 2023 Presidential Election, Yiaga Africa said Watching The Vote will deploy 3014 stationary and 774 LGA’s and 48 mobile citizen observers to a representative random sample of 1507 polling units across all 36 States and the FCT.
Speaking at a media round table yesterday in Abuja, the Executive Director of Yiaga Africa, Samson Itodo, said the the sample is carefully constructed by a trained statistician to ensure every LGA is included proportionally in the sample.
“The number of sampled polling units for each LGA is therefore based on the percentage of polling units and registered voters in that LGA. WTV observers will use their mobile phones to send coded text messages (SMS) of observation reports to Yiaga Africa’s WTV National Data Centre in Abuja.
“Each observer will receive a structured observation checklist and a critical incident form to ensure uniformity in the observation process. WTV Observers will report on the opening of polling units, accreditation, and voting, counting and the announcement/posting of results.
“WTV Observers will also send in official results as announced by the election officials at polling units to the WTV Data Center Data Center.”
He added that for additional oversight, WTV will also deploy 774 observers to LGA collation centers to observe the result collation process and 48 observers to observe at the State Results Collation Centres.
Speaking further, he said, “This methodology, when matched with the latest technology-text messages transmitted by cell phones to a central data base enables #Watching The Vote to present an objective, nonpartisan, real-time picture of the election’s conduct and verify the accuracy of the official results. The project will not announce the official results, this is the responsibility of INEC.
“Using the PVT, Yiaga Africa is able to provide independent information to voters, candidates, political parties, and INEC about whether the official results for the Presidential Elections truly reflect the ballots cast at polling units and to. If INEC’s official results fall within Yiaga Africa’s estimated range, then the public, political parties and candidates should have confidence that the official results reflect the ballots cast at polling units. If the official results do not reflect the ballots cast, #Watching The Vote will expose it.
#Watching The Vote is not an exit poll. No voter is asked for whom he/she voted. #Watching The Vote uses the official results as announced and posted at polling units. INEC poll officials at polling units are the ones who count the ballot papers. #Watching The Vote citizen observers do not count the ballot papers themselves. Rather they observe the counting process and report on the conduct of that process and the official result for polling units as announced by the poll officials.
“The PVT methodology was first developed by citizen observers in the Philippines in 1986 and has now been used by civic organizations around the world – more than 200 PVTs have been conducted in 52 countries. In Africa, the methodology has been deployed in Burkina Faso, Côte d’Ivoire, Ghana, Kenya, Malawi, Tunisia, and Zambia. In Nigeria, the PVT has been deployed in three presidential elections and has been adopted for 18 off-cycle elections and Yiaga Africa has so far adopted the PVT in the 2019 Presidential election and in 10 off-cycle elections including the 2018 Ekiti and Osun governorship election.”
Also speaking, the National President of the Nigeria Union of Journalists (NUJ), Comrade Chris Isiguzo, Urged journalists not allow politicians to frustrate the process.
He urged them to work towards ensuring free and fair polls in 2023.
“We should work to promote national interests and not to project the interests of politicians. We need to team up and educate people on the need to participate in the interests of the country.”
