New fact emerges to verify if INECs IReV portal shows Peter Obi won 2023 presidential election in 19 states

The trending claim that the Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate, Peter Obi, won 19 states in the February 25 poll has been considered misleading, according to Dubawa, a Nigerian fact-checking organisation.

Obi, a former governor of Anambra state, came third in the presidential poll with over six million votes.

The claim that INEC's IReV portal showed Peter Obi won the 2023 presidential election in 19 states has been fact-checked and found to be misleading.

He got the highest votes in 11 states and the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), but they were not enough to make him win as he lost to the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Bola Tinubu, who polled over eight million votes.

Tinubu was followed by Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) with almost seven million votes.

However, Obi's supporters have refused to accept the results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), as many claimed he won the election.

The LP flagbearer also reinforced their claim as he alleged in his first speech after the elections that he won and would prove his victory in court.

Legit.ng notes that the main bone of contention was the failure of the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) machine to upload the results of the elections held on February 25.

Thus, disagreeing with INEC's official results, some Facebook users, who are also supporters of the ‘Obidient’ movement, claimed Obi won in 19 states of the federation, including the FCT. They also added that the PDP candidate only won eight states; the APC presidential candidate won in seven states, while the NNPP candidate won in two states.

Dubawa's verification found the claims to be misleading. The fact-checking organisation said results from polling units across Nigeria were yet to be entirely uploaded on the IReV portal as of the time it filed its report.

The report read in part: "DUBAWA visited the INEC’s result viewing portal. As of the time of filing this report at 05:47 pm on March 7, 2023, only results from 164,233 polling units have been uploaded on the IREV portal representing 92.87% of the total 176,846 polling units. This means the results of 12,613 polling units nationwide had yet to be uploaded on the IReV portal.

"It is, therefore, misleading to dismiss the result announced by INEC and claim that Mr Obi won 19 states, including the FCT.

"Also, the result uploaded by a Facebook user, Mazi Chiemena Samuel, which showed Labour Party’s victory in about 18 states, including the FCT, is not from the IReV portal. Instead, it is a report from a poll conducted by Nextier on January 27, 2023."

Meanwhile, the Federal High Court in Lagos has ordered INEC to electronically upload the results of the March 11 governorship and State House of Assembly elections in Lagos state from the polling units to the IReV. Justice Peter Lifu granted the order while delivering judgment in a suit filed by the Labour Party, its governorship candidate, Gbadebo Rhodes-Vivour, and 40 others. The plaintiffs had sought an order of Mandamus to compel INEC to obey the Electoral Act and its guidelines for conducting the elections.