A civil society organisation, YIAGA AFRICA, has queried the overall percentage of cancelled ballots announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) during the just concluded presidential elections.

The group said in a statement issued on Wednesday that it considered the cancellations quite huge, as well as the discrepancies between the number of registered voters announced prior to the election by the electoral body and the number announced during collation.

It called on the electoral umpire to offer the needed explanation to Nigerians to close any credibility gap.

According to YIAGA AFRICA, the overall percentage of cancelled ballots announced by INEC was 3.3 percent of all registered voters, adding that this figure was four times higher than the rate from 2015 when registered voters in cancelled polling units were less than one percent of all registered voters.

It also noted the discrepancies between the number of registered voters announced before the election and the numbers announced during collation and called on INEC to provide an in-depth explanation, including whether these differences indicated that collation did not conclude in all parts of the country.

YIAGA AFRICA however noted that its parallel vote tabulation (PVT) data which projected its estimated vote shares on the basis of the numbers announced at the polling units before any cancellation of results could take place, showed that neither of these issues impacted the outcome of the election.

In the report, the group said: “Based on reports from 1,491 or 98.4 percent of sampled polling units YIAGA AFRICA’s findings show that for the presidential election the All Progressive Congress (APC) should receive between 50.0% and 55.8 percent of the vote; and the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) should receive between 41.2 percent and 47.0 percent of the vote. These figures are consistent with the official results as announced by INEC. For both APC and PDP the official results fall within the PVT estimated ranges.

“Estimates were based on observations from 3,030 observers carefully deployed in pairs to a random statistical sample of 1,515 polling units. If the official results fell within YIAGA AFRICA’s estimated ranges, then the public, political parties and candidates should have confidence in the ballots cast at the polling units.

“We Nigerian voters, political parties, candidates and international stakeholders to have confidence in the just-concluded electoral process and the officially announced results,” said Dr. Hussaini Abdu, Chair of YIAGA AFRICA Watching the Vote.

He called on all political parties, candidates and the people of Nigeria to show political maturity and maintain peace in the post-election period. The group also urged all parties to adhere to legal provisions for filing electoral claims and disputes, adding that the challenges experienced during the elections call for a detailed and systematic post-election review to include an inquiry into the cancellation of ballots, an audit of the voter register and a review of the elections operation management systems.

YIAGA AFRICA described itself as a “strictly nonpartisan and independent civil society organisation without affiliation to any political party, candidate or state agency”, but merely carries out research, capacity development and policy advocacy.

The group said it has been involved in election observation since 2007 and is one of the leading organisations working on elections in Nigeria.