Osun poll: Yiaga urges BVAS audit, praises voters’ vigilance

Election observer group, Yiaga Africa, has said voters’ vigilance in Osun State was the most effective deterrent to result manipulation in Saturday’s governorship election.

The group noted that citizens stayed back at polling units and followed results to ward and local government area collation centres to ensure that the figures announced were not altered.

The civil society organisation described the just-concluded governorship election as a significant demonstration of how technology, citizen vigilance and institutional preparedness could strengthen electoral integrity.

Yiaga Africa, in its Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) statement on the election released on Sunday in Osogbo, said its statistical estimates closely matched the official results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, indicating that the figures declared at the state collation centre reflected the votes counted at polling units.

The Chairperson of the Osun Election Observation Mission of Yiaga Africa, Dr Asmau Maikudi, who read the statement, said the group deployed 300 observers and 32 mobile observers across the 30 LGAs and based its findings on reports from 289 of the 300 sampled polling units.

Maikudi also said the August 15 poll was a defining test of the Electoral Act 2026 and showed that when institutions, technology and citizens worked together, credible outcomes were possible.

“The resilience of voters in Osun was the quiet achievement of the August 15th elections. Citizens went to the polls in an environment shaped by the attack on PVC collection centres, politically linked violence, contestation over motor parks, and weeks of inflammatory rhetoric, conditions that Yiaga Africa warned could suppress voter participation.

“Despite this tension, voters came out regardless. The turnout of 43% achieved under that apprehension is not a story of apathy but of citizens who refused to be intimidated out of the process.

“Voters also did not stop at casting the ballot. In line with Yiaga Africa’s pre-election Protect Your Vote campaign, they stayed back at polling units to witness the sorting, counting and announcement of results, and followed those results to ward and LGA collation centres to see them entered and declared. That vigilance is the most effective deterrent to result manipulation,” Yiaga Africa said.

She further observed improvements in election-day logistics, with 96 per cent of polling units opening for accreditation and voting by 9:30am, despite INEC reprinting ballots after a last-minute court order on the inclusion of the Social Democratic Party on the ballot.

She said the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System worked in 80 per cent of polling units and was fixed in the remaining 20 per cent, while downloadable Permanent Voter Cards introduced under the Electoral Act 2026 were used in 23 per cent of polling units.

The group also reported high transparency at the counting stage, with 99 per cent of polling units showing how ballots were marked, 91 per cent posting results publicly and 85 per cent transmitting EC8A forms to IReV.

Yiaga recommended binding INEC guidance on downloadable PVCs, a technical audit of BVAS, publication of the causes of biometric failures, better training for ad hoc staff and stronger enforcement against vote buying by security agencies, the EFCC and ICPC ahead of the 2027 elections.

“INEC should issue binding, uniform guidance to presiding officers on the acceptance of downloadable PVCs and usage for voter accreditation. A comprehensive post-election technical audit of the BVAS devices should be conducted to identify the causes of the failures and strengthen device testing, maintenance and rapid technical support to minimise disruptions to voter accreditation ahead of the 2027 general elections.

“INEC should ensure effective and comprehensive training of ad hoc officials, an effective oversight system for personnel deployed in the field and consistency in the application of the election day procedure.

“Security should review their deployment ahead of the 2027 general election by ensuring the joint deployment of security officials with the polling officials and election materials from the RACs to the polling units on election day,” Maikudi noted.