An election observer group, Youth Initiative for Advocacy Growth and Advancement (YIAGA), has described the Parallel Vote Tabulation (PVT) methodology as the best method to observe elections to sustain credibility.
Mr Samson Itodo, Executive Director, YIAGA, said this when speaking with the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on the role of election observers on Saturday in Abuja.
According to him, the PVT is an advanced observation methodology that uses well-established statistical principles and sophisticated information technology.
He said that YIAGA under its Watching The Vote (WTV) project was able to deploy the PVT methodology in the Nov. 26 Ondo Governorship election.
According to him, the results collated by YIAGA tallied with the results collated and announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
“YIAGA’s WTV employed the PVT methodology as part of its observation of the 2016 Ondo state gubernatorial election.
“PVT provide the most timely and accurate information on the conduct of voting and counting of votes.
“It is the only observation methodology that can independently verify the accuracy of official INEC election results.
He said that INEC itself confirmed the potency of the PVT after it announced the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Rotimi Akeredolu (SAN) as the winner of the election.
Itodo told NAN that the group would sustain its effort at ensuring that Nigerian achieved credible electoral process in conjunction with INEC.
He said that his recent trip to Ghana to observe the election was an eye opener, where almost everything went on transparently, adding that Nigeria could not afford to stay on a spot.
He, however, called on election observers to double their efforts to ensure free, fair and credible electoral process; this would go a long way to ensure a genuine democratic system in Nigeria.
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalls that Mrs Amina Zakari, National Commissioner in-charge of Electoral Operations, INEC, had earlier said that PVT for the 2016 Ondo governorship election corroborated the commission’s result.
She said that this was due to sustained improvement on its activities over the years.
According to her, the PVT result speaks volumes of the outcome of INEC’s efforts at conducting free, fair and credible elections since 2011.
“We are very excited to see that a group was tracking the Ondo governorship election’s results at various polling units and the result has very thin difference with our own.
“We also have an e-track monitoring system, we have been monitoring our elections online and we have seen the trend, what we have online and what is announced has no significant difference. (NAN)
