The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has dismissed claims that results were manipulated at the Kuroko Health Centre polling unit in Yangoji Ward, Kwali Area Council, during the recently concluded Federal Capital Territory (FCT) area council elections.
After the polls on Saturday, reports that went viral alleged that the All Progressives Congress (APC) received 1,219 votes at the unit, despite having only 345 registered voters and 213 accredited voters.
In a statement on Tuesday, FCT Resident Electoral Commissioner, Aminu Idris, described the claims as “untrue and misleading” and attributed the discrepancy to a clerical error by the presiding officer while recording the party’s votes.
He explained that the presiding officer initially recorded 122 votes for the APC but discovered an overcount during ballot tallying.
FCT Kwali’s Controversial Result
“On tallying everything, she noticed there was an overshoot by one. So, they recounted the ballots in the open; that was when she realised that APC should be 121, not 122,” the statement said.
The official added that the presiding officer corrected the figures by cancelling the ‘2’ at the end and replacing it with ‘1’ in front, also adjusting the figure in words.
“The official result recorded and uploaded from the polling unit shows that the political party scored 121 votes, not 1,219 as alleged on social media,” Idris said.
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He noted that party agents present confirmed and signed the corrected results. He also highlighted that INEC’s technological safeguards, including the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) and the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV), make manipulation impossible.
“The BVAS system performs internal validation checks to ensure total votes do not exceed accredited voters. Overvoting is automatically flagged and cannot be finalised,” Idris said.
He added that the number of accredited voters at the unit was 213, and the score entered for the APC was 121, consistent with accreditation figures. If 1,219 votes had been entered, “the BVAS device would have rejected the entry instantly,” he said.
Idris concluded that the FCT election was conducted in substantial compliance with the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines.
Rafiyat Sadiq is a political, justice, and human rights reporter with Pinnacle Daily, known for fearless reporting and impactful storytelling. At Pinnacle Daily, she brings clarity and depth to issues shaping governance, democracy, and the protection of citizens’ rights.
