Following the declaration of Nigeria’s Senior Advocate, 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 reportedly polled 10,998 votes to Osigwe’s 20,435, said he had “reasonable and well-informed reasons to believe that the electoral process and the election were not credible or satisfactory.”
In a statement dated July 21, 2024 and personally signed by him, Erojikwe noted that at three different times before the poll, he had reason to write to the Electoral Committee of the Nigerian Bar Association, ECNBA, to express his concerns and highlight some violations and irregularities surrounding the election.
He said: “My initial complaint was about the opacity of the selection process for election service providers and the lack of information to enable us to conduct a fully informed assessment of the shortlisted service providers. This call led the ECNBA to conduct a new tender which resulted in the selection of Election Buddy.”
“By a further letter dated 4 June 2024, I expressed my concerns regarding the provisions of the election guidelines set out in the 2015 NBA Constitution (as amended) which the ECNBA had complied with in disobedience, including by failing to provide voting guidelines and a voters list within the time period stipulated in the NBA Constitution.
“I reiterated this call in my last letter of 19th July 2024, and it was only 4 hours before the start of the poll that the ECNBA published the complete list of eligible voters in defiance of the provisions of paragraph 9 of Part V of the Second Schedule of the NBA Constitution which provides in mandatory terms that the ECNBA must publish the complete list of voters at least 45 (forty-five) clear days before the date of the election.”
Erojikwe said that if the violations and irregularities had been limited to the process leading up to the elections and the elections had been conducted in a credible manner, it might have been easier to ignore them.
He detailed five areas where he believed the conduct of the elections fell far short of expected technical standards and the spirit/intent of the NBA Constitution.
“First, while the ECNBA and the service provider made the admirable decision to allow live viewing of election results, the same decision revealed the rare phenomenon where the number of votes attributed to the winning candidate steadily increased in an almost exact geometric progression at the top of each hour throughout most of the election in a manner that, according to our professional cyber analysts, demonstrates vote pre-programming.
“Second, our agents who have been closely monitoring the election results have reported, and the documents we have show, that the number of votes was not counted. At various times, the sum of the votes cast for the candidates was either higher or lower than the total votes counted at the time in question. For a process where the counting is automatic, such a statistical discrepancy is inexplicable. A quick review of the results at different times will confirm this.
“Third, while the actual voting took place on the platform provided by Election Buddy, i.e. electionbuddy.com, the live election results were presented by a completely different and unrelated platform, go.ecnba.org. The technical experts I engaged find this rather curious and strange, and it calls into question the integrity of the results. From a technical perspective, this leads to an irresistible conclusion that the results allegedly projected on the ecnba.org platform as live election results were simulated results that may, likely, be different from those on Election Buddy’s back-end servers.
“Fourth, and also very fundamental, many of our supporters reported that they received emails confirming that their vote had been submitted before they even had a chance to vote. After complaining, some of these supporters were then sent another link to vote. In other words, there were demonstrable cases of double voting or at least data manipulation.
“Finally, despite the election being widely announced as starting at midnight and ending at 11:59pm on Saturday 20 July 2024, voting continued into the early hours of Sunday 21 July 2024 and the number of votes continued to increase.
“The above and many others have demonstrated that the fears I expressed in the run-up to the election were not unfounded and that the electoral process may have been manipulated to achieve a predetermined outcome.”
Erojikwe stated that for the above reasons, he is unable to accept the election result announced by the ECNBA and instead calls for 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 the step had become necessary to ensure full confidence in the electoral process within the NBA.
Similarly, Nigeria’s Senior Advocate, Chukwuka Ikwuazom, who reportedly polled 9,018 votes to become the second runner-up, has also requested access to critical information and documents related to the elections.
In a letter signed and addressed to ECNBA President and Senior Advocate of Nigeria, Oluseun Abimbola, Ikwuazom said his application is “motivated by several worrying anomalies and irregularities observed during the electoral process.”
Ikwuazom, who sensationally withdrew from the race during the election, said he and his team observed four anomalies, namely: voter identity theft and potential double voting, discrepancies in the display and updating of votes, suspicious vote increase patterns and discrepancies in voting patterns.
He has therefore made a formal request to obtain within 48 hours full access to the server and application log files used during the election period, to the complete database records, including voter information and voting transactions, among other information.
Part of his letter reads: “My team and I have noted the following issues, among others, that deserve our attention:
“Voter Identity Theft and Risk of Double Voting: Several voters reported being unable to vote because the system indicated that they had already voted when they had not. After complaining, some of these supporters were subsequently provided with an alternate link to vote. This situation clearly demonstrates instances of double voting or possible manipulation of data. These events raise serious concerns about the integrity of the voter database, the security of the voting process, and the risk of unauthorized manipulation of voting records.
“Differences in display and updating of voting results: During the election, it was observed that the voting results viewing portal (https://go.ecnba.org/results/) simply displayed PNG (Portable Network Graphics) images downloaded at regular intervals rather than a page that directly and automatically accessed data from a primary election database/platform (electionbuddy.com). Additionally, although the page was scheduled to refresh every minute, it often took two or more refreshes for voter data to be updated. This significant lag between the viewing portal and the originating system raises concerns about the real-time accuracy of the results displayed and the potential for data manipulation between systems.
“Suspicious Vote Increment Pattern: Throughout the election, the number of votes cast for the winning candidate showed a steady increase in an almost exact geometric progression at the beginning of each hour. This pattern is highly indicative of a pre-programmed distribution of votes, 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.
“Differences in voting patterns: Reported voting figures show significant inconsistencies with actual votes cast by my supporters. Voting patterns suggest potential manipulation of the system to favor a predetermined outcome.”
These problems, he argued, undermine the credibility of elections and require a thorough review of the electoral process and systems.
