Osun Election Diary: Monitoring Voting and Result Collation in Ife South, By Adedoyin Oguntade

By Adedoyin Oguntade

During the last Osun State governorship election, the Centre for Journalism Innovation and Development (CJID) assigned me to cover Ife South Local Government as an election observer. I arrived in Ifetedo, a town in the local government, on Friday, 14 August. After arriving, I located the Independent National Electoral Commission office for the local government, which also serves as the collation centre. When I got to the INEC office, the only set of persons awaiting mobilisation were the gatecrashers.

After knowing the location of the INEC office, I proceeded to one of the Super RACs within the local government, Ifetedo Middle School, where I reported that the electoral materials were available and some of the INEC personnel deployed for the election were also present.

Also, on Friday, I was able to get a bike man who would take me around the polling units on the day of the election. After all of these were sorted, I went to my hotel in Okeigbo, Ondo State. I was unable to get a hotel in Ifetedo because all the hotels were booked. As such, the only available option was to go to the next town, Okeigbo, which falls within Ondo State.

On the day of the election, I left my hotel around 7:30 a.m. and moved with my bikeman to the Super RAC where I had left off the day before. When I got there, I noticed that all vehicles had moved out to their respective polling units.

After ascertaining this, I started moving with my bikeman from one polling unit to the other. At each polling unit, I observed what was going on and sent updates to the Osun State analysis centre group.

There were certain polling units where I noticed voters showing their votes to the public before putting the ballot papers into the boxes, voters writing their names with certain individuals after voting, among other things. All of these were duly reported, some with pictorial evidence attached.

Aside from observing the election in Ifetedo community, I also went to Olode community. There, I was able to observe the election in some polling units. At this time, some polling units were already counting their votes, while others that still had voters in the queue continued with the voting process.

After getting back into Ifetedo, I noticed that quite a few polling units were done. There was a particular one I was able to get the results for due to the fact that I got there just in time.

By evening, there was only one polling unit left in Ifetedo that had not finished its election. I proceeded to this polling unit, observed the election until they were done, and I also took note of the announced results.

After this polling unit was done, it was already past 7:00 p.m., so I decided to move to the INEC office, which is the collation centre for the local government. At this time, the Presiding Officers, their assistants, RAC Supervisors, and other officials were already arriving from the respective wards.

By 7:30 p.m., the INEC officials at the local government collation centre decided to start the collation. The officials introduced themselves, and afterwards, the supervisors from each ward started presenting their results. Ikija 1, Ikija 2, Abiri Ogudu, Ayesan, Aare, Osi, Aye, Oke Owena, Kere, Mefoworade and Olode all presented in their respective order.

At one point, there was a pause because some wards had not arrived, and Olode presented last because, although the officials had arrived, the result for a particular polling unit had not been completed and was being sorted out.

After the presentation from the last ward around 12:38 a.m., the INEC officials proceeded to collate the final results for the local government. This was eventually announced around 1:00 a.m. After this process was completed, I sent what I had taken note of and the image of the final results to the analysis group.

The entire collation process for Ife South Local Government ended at exactly 1:15 a.m., after which the officials proceeded to Osogbo.

I could not leave for my hotel anymore because it was already very late. I had to sleep over at the INEC office, and I left in the morning, given that I had completed my assignment at the local government. I left Ifetedo on Sunday, 16 August, around 9:30 a.m. for Ile-Ife, Osun State.

Adedoyin Oguntade

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