As the debate over Nigeria’s election continues, a prominent opposition politician has shared a misleading video that calls into question the official results in one area.
Senator Dino Melaye of Nigeria’s Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), whose candidate Atiku Abubakar is contesting the results, tweeted about “INEC magic,” referring to the country’s official election commission.
INEC magic pic.twitter.com/3gJ5JrjFCK
— Senator Dino Melaye. (SDM) (@_dinomelaye) March 2, 2023
The video has received thousands of views and depicts a TV channel results screen with people heard off-camera joking about the total for the ruling APC party because the figures in the rows above don’t add up to anything close to the total seen at the bottom. They do not mention that the results for the other parties shown do not add up either.
The reason for this is that the Twitter video only shows a portion of a full table displayed on a television screen, which we discovered matches the Delta state results.
Watching the official announcement ceremony, it’s clear that there are rows of numbers above those seen in the tweet, which can be heard being read out by officials.
There are 25 local government areas in the state, not just the ten shown in the social media post.
We contacted Senator Melaye about his tweet but have yet to hear back. According to the official results, the Labour Party won the state, with the PDP coming in second and the APC coming in third.
