₦airaland Forum

Lol. I mean, you refused real-time transmission of results but are in situation rooms doing what? Waiting for e-data from polling units transmitted?

Or waiting for the calisthenics of rigging going on back stage?


Meanwhile, a failed govt where banditry, terror and hunger thrives has nothing to do with being re-elected. You will be judged by how your govt was. If people's vote counted, they wouldn't be need to bribe governors.

Analysing reports from polling agents on the field

I

chatinent:
Lol. I mean, you refused real-time transmission of results but are in situation rooms doing what? Waiting for e-data from polling units transmitted?

Or waiting for the calisthenics of rigging going on back stage?


Meanwhile, a failed govt where banditry, terror and hunger thrives has nothing to do with being re-elected. You will be judged by how your govt was. If people's vote counted, they wouldn't be need to bribe governors.

you don't know the meaning of situation and room?

Click LIKE if you think ADC will win majority in this FCT election and SHARE if you think otherwise.

Damn! These Obidents are hopelessly ignorant! Gosh

COMRADES, even me I don,t know the funtion of situation room in Nigerian election because of the corrupt judiciary

Any party without all round Party agents in all the wards and polling units don't have anything to do with situation rooms. I am talking to a particular party. This is because how will you know if rigging is taking place against you,? And later you will come out and shout rigging without a solid evidence?

I wonder oo.

What figure did they arrive at their own situation room without relying on IREV

The sore losers have been claiming the IREV portal is inaccessible

You dey mind the mad people? Tinumbu is a political fraudster.

What a dumb question!

Is like asking what’s the essence of a war room in a project.

So party delegates should be in their houses doing nothing and waiting for results?

What’s a foolish question!

PDPdestroyer:
Damn! These Obidents are hopelessly ignorant! Gosh

You're the ignorant one here. Simple post you can't understand. Empty container.

Situation room help you to know if you should change the rigging strategy before it too late

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jG1VNSCsP5Q

Situation room is almost as useless without free and fair credible election that allows direct electronic transmission of results.

I ORIGINALLY POSTED THIS ON OCTOBER 1ST, 2020

(Naptu2's note. I actually started writing this in the middle of the night on September 18th/early morning September 19th).



Money elections

I started writing this on Friday night/Saturday morning, but I had to leave for my adventure before I could finish it and I didn't save what I had written, so I'm giving it another go.

---

I heard about this issue in 1983, 1987 and 1989, but it wasn't until 1991 that I got the opportunity to see it firsthand.

Dear diary, do you remember that I told you about a man that lived at a place called Ekiti Lodge? I told you that he was a politician and businessman in the 1950s and '60s, a judge in the 1970s and '80s and he became a politician again in the early 1990s.


He wasn't very successful in his second stint as a politician. You see, he had a reputation of being an honest and no-nonsense judge. He was the kind of person that some Nigerians would describe as being troublesome (because he didn't take any nonsense and he didn't allow people to dish any nonsense) and Nigerian politics doesn't like honest people who that are very principled. But that's not the theme of this piece.


The man contested in an election in 1991 and that gave me an opportunity to study this issue from the inside.


There are three sets of people that usually sign the result sheet after an election and these three set of people are usually given original duplicate copies of the result. The three set of people are (1) the returning officer, (2) the party agents (3) representative of the police.


Police

Usually the duplicate copy is given to a representative of the divisional police officer (DPO) if the election/collation is at the ward level, a representative of the area commander if the election/collation is at the local government level, a representative of the commissioner of police if the election is at the state level and a representative of the inspector general of police if it is a presidential election result.

(Now I'm going to deviate from what I planned to post on Saturday because I've realised that this is an opportunity to post something that I've wanted to post since January. So here is one of my abandoned posts).

It was this fact that gave governor Hope Uzodinma victory at the Supreme Court.


INEC had conducted the Imo State governorship elections in 2019. The results that INEC declared (at the end of the process) showed that Emeka Ihedioha had won the election, Uche Nwosu came second, Ifeanyi Ararume came third and Hope Uzodinma came fourth. Many of the contestants were not happy with the results and they headed for the Election Petition Tribunal to challenge the it.


Hope Uzodinma of the APC alleged that INEC did not include results from 388 polling units in areas where he had a strong support base and he claimed that he would have won the election if those results were added.

INEC claimed that elections in those polling units were marred by violence, ballot snatching and other irregularities. It claimed that it cancelled the votes in those polling units because of the irregularities.

However, the APC stated that INEC had no authority to cancel votes from those polling units because it is only the courts that can annull the votes. It stated that cancelling the votes amounted to disenfranchising voters that voted at those polling units.

INEC stated that it had no results from those polling units.

The APC then got its polling agents to testify and they tendered their copies of the results, but the PDP poked holes in their stories during cross examination. For example, the PDP showed that some of the results sheets did not have the signatures of all of the party agents that were present during the election.

Then the APC subpoened the Imo State deputy commissioner of police in charge of operations (DCompolOps), Rabiu Hassaini, to bring the police's copy of the results and testify at the tribunal. DCompolOps are usually in charge of election security at the state level, while DIGPol Ops is usually in charge of election security at the federal (presidential and National Assembly elections) level.

Rabiu Hassaini arrived at the tribunal with large bags filled with the police's copy of the results from the 388 polling units and he testified in support of those results.


However the PDP objected to Hassaini's testimony on two grounds.

1) The PDP stated that Hassaini did not provide evidence to show that he had the Inspector General's permission to testify.

2) The PDP also alleged that the results that were presented by Hassaini were forged.

The tribunal accepted the PDP's objection and excluded the results that were presented by Hassaini. Therefore, it declared that Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP was the winner of the election. The APC appealed the decision of the tribunal.


The Appeal Court upheld the decision of the tribunal. However, one of the judges gave a dissenting opinion. He wrote that the subpoena to Hassaini was routed through the office of the Inspector General of Police and that meant that the IGP was aware and gave his approval for Hassaini to testify, otherwise he won't have appeared at the tribunal. He further wrote that the PDP did not provide any evidence to show that the results that were tendered by Hassaini were forged.


The APC appealed the decision of the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court unanimously alligned itself with the dissenting judgement from the Appeal Court. The Supreme Court ruled that Hassaini had the permission of the IGP to testify and that the PDP did not prove that the results that were tendered by Hassaini were forged. Remember that by law, Hassaini, who was the representative of the Imo State commissioner of police, was entitled to an original duplicate copy of the result.

The Supreme Court therefore ruled that INEC unlawfully excluded the results from 388 polling units and when those results were added the total enabled Hope Uzodinma to leapfrog from the fourth position to the first position. And that's how Hope Uzodinma became governor of Imo State.

---

But that's not the main theme of this post. The main theme of this post is the party agents and the huge amount of money that is required to mobilise them on election day.

Political party agents sign the result sheet after the announcement or the result of the 2016 Ondo State governorship election.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yNU8ki6lRXA

As you've seen in the previous section, it's very important that you have agents at all the polling units and collation centers. The polling agent serves the following purposes:

1) He enables the candidate to know the actual result of the election.


2) He enables the candidate to know if there has been any electoral  malpractice at the polling unit or collation center and he also enables the candidate to gather evidence of such malpractice. This evidence will be very useful at the tribunal.


3) He enables the party and candidate to know if the electoral umpire has made a genuine mistake and he also ensures that the mistake is corrected. This evidence will be


4) Basically, the party agent protects the interest of the party and the candidate at the polling units and collation centers.

Interview with the agents of the APC and PDP at the 2015 Presidential Election National Collation Center.

The agent of the APC, Dr Olorunimbe Mamora, said that he noticed an error in some of the figures announced by INEC and he called the APC agent in Enugu who confirmed that INEC made a mistake and then he called the attention of Professor Jega to the error and it was corrected.

The agent of the PDP, Elder Godsday Orubebe, said that he was satisfied with the results that had been released so far because they tallied with the results relayed to them by their agents in the field. He said that his only other observation was that there were a lot of results flying around on social media and so he drew Professor Jega's attention to that and Professor Jega said that it's only the result that was released at the center that was authentic.



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QMQr2CO4btU

So, as you can see, the party agent is very important. The candidate/party must have an agent at every polling unit and every collation center so that there'll be someone to protect his interest at all these places. Now imagine if it is a presidential election!

There are 119,973 polling units in Nigeria and 57,000 other polling centers. This makes a total of 176,973 places where voting is conducted. That's not including the collation centers!

These are the possible collation centers.


1. Registration Area (RA)/Ward Level

2. Local Government Area (LGA) Level

3. State Assembly Constituency Level

4. Federal (House of Representatives) Constituency Level

5. Senatorial District Level

6. State Level

7. Collation and Declaration of Presidential Election Result at the National Level.

According to INEC. . .

The Presiding Officers/Collation Officers at the various levels complete the result sheet and request the party agents available to countersign. Duplicate copy of the result is made available to each one while the original is taken to the next level of collation.

The Presiding Officers/Collation Officers at each level completes the notice of results of poll and paste at the Polling Unit or Collation Centre.

So you need to have your party agents at these collation centers in addition to the polling centers. Nowadays, with the advent of information communication technology, particularly the Internet and mobile phones, political parties and candidates also set up situation rooms where they'll receive reports from their agents in the field in real time. They also have analysts in these situation rooms who can analyse the data that's gotten from the agents and advise the candidate accordingly.

President Buhari Visits APC Situation Room In Abuja. PICTURES. 
https://www.nairaland.com/5046733/president-buhari-visits-apc-situation

PDP Monitoring Edo Election From Situation Room (Photos)
https://www.nairaland.com/6130685/pdp-monitoring-edo-election-situation

The staff at the situation rooms during a governorship election are usually from out of state. This because they need to monitor the situation right from the release of sensitive materials in the early hours of election day until the final result is released and this means that they need to be at the situation room for two or three days straight. Meanwhile the candidate needs every vote that he can get, so he wouldn't want potential voters locked up in the situation room.

El-Rufai and the APC situation room for the 2013 Anambra governorship election.
https://www.vanguardngr.com/2013/11/anambra-election-sss-detains-el-rufai-awka/

Wike and the PDP situation room for the 2020 Edo governorship election.
http://saharareporters.com/2020/09/18/policemen-lay-siege-rivers-governor-wike’s-hotel-benin-pdp-raises-alarm

All of these people must be mobilised and the equipment in the situation room must be procured


Elections usually begin early in the morning and continue till around 10 or 12 o'clock when counting begins. Sometimes the elections are extended due to late arrival of materials and the party agent might be at the polling unit till 3pm. These polling agents must eat breakfast and lunch while they are performing their duties.

Collation of the results might start in the afternoon of election day and continue all night and into the next day. The party agents at the collation centers must eat lunch, dinner and breakfast while performing their duties.

Furthermore, nowadays, these agents need mobile phone airtime in order to relay reports to their situation rooms and they also need to be able to transport themselves to their duty posts and to be able to monitor the movement of results from the polling units to the collation centers.

All of these cost money.




That takes me back to the stories from 1987, 1989 and 1991 (and even from the early 2000s). There were stories of political parties and candidates bringing food to polling units and feeding everybody there, including their opponent's agents. There were also stories of parties and candidates inducing their opponent's agents to switch allegiances. Can you imagine a situation in which an agent appears at the tribunal to testify against his own candidate?

Party agents usually refuse to sign the result sheet if they believe that the election was compromised, but can you imagine a situation in which a party agent not only signs the result sheet, but he also testifies that the election was free and fair, despite the fact that it was rigged against his candidate?

The agent of the PDP, Osita Chidoka, explains why he refused to sign the result sheet after the announcement of the result of the 2019 presidential election.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jNicT-jUHq4


The agent of the APC explains why he refused to sign the election result sheet after the announcement of the result of the 2020 Edo State governorship election.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iSA1-qKxyHA

This is why political parties and candidates do all they can to select their most loyal followers to act as polling agents and they also spend a lot of money to ensure that the agents are happy and fully mobilised on election day.

Most of the Obidients I know are as wise and brilliant as Peter Obi.

It's for the party agent in each of the poly unit or major centers. to send real time data. Not the official one from inec. But the party records. If the result were change as a result of none transmission. The
party have their own server to contend with the original result from inec.

But unfortunately they will tell them to go court after rigging. When the judges are in their pockets.

The only way to win Africa president from history is wide margin. 80/20 or 70/30.

Anything less than that can easily to turned.

N

HacheNoire:
What a dumb question!

Is like asking what’s the essence of a war room in a project.

So party delegates should be in their houses doing nothing and waiting for results?

What’s a foolish question!

If party delegates can send results from different locations why can't same be transmitted to inec server? Well, you might be enjoying the fraud, but the ball won't be in your court forever. The earlier we fix our society, the better for us all and our future generations yet unborn. Thank you

I originally posted this on November 15th, 2025.

Situation rooms

I can't find any of those scenes from those 1970s and 1980s movies online. I've got the next best thing, which is a 2005 episode of the West Wing.

There was usually a campaign headquarters In those 1970s and '80s movies and TV series. The campaign headquarters was usually filled with workers and volunteers. What were they doing?

There were usually lots of phones (these were the old style rotary dial or push button telephone that we had in the 1970s and '80s). The staff at campaign headquarters used them to call voters to convince them to register and vote for the candidate.

Lots of campaign material were made. These included badges (which Americans called buttons), T-shirts, baseball caps, etc and they were distributed via the campaign headquarters, etc.

Analysts at the campaign headquarters analysed rhw demographics and planned the campaign based on the analysis (you had people that targetted blacks, people that targetted women, etc). Canvassers were sent out from the campaign office to go from door to door to campaign for the candidate.

Just before, during and after election day the campaign headquarters was used to monitor events in the field. Campaign workers had (analog) mobile phones and pagers (beepers) with which they sent messages to headquarters. People at headquarters tracked the voting process and kept evidence of any issues.

People in the US usually do not wait for the electoral commissions to release results. There is no law that bars media houses from releasing results. Therefore, most of the results that we hear about are projections from media houses.

Some Nigerians say that results are quickly announced in the US. They don't realise that it can take many days before the official counting ends and results are announced.

What usually happens is that various TV stations, newspapera and magazines make projections about who they think will win the elections.

Therefore, there are banks of televisions in the headquarters and they monitor what the various TV stations say (whether ABC has called the election for Dukakis or whether CBS says that Jesse Jackson has won).

Usually, a candidate conceeds defeat before the final results are announced. The campaign headquarters is usually temporarily closed and a hotel or hall, which has been already booked, takes center stage. The staff go to that hotel and the candidate makes an appearance and gives his victory or concession speech.

2005 episode of the West Wing

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rttmLrm8zgk?si=QO11Pdhw_TTsarei

I watched in 2002 as President Obasanjo opened his campaign office. He said that the campaign would not interfere with his duties as president because he would go to the campaign office after 5pm each day after leaving his office at the Aso Rock Villa.

As I've told you many times, I got the opportunity to monitor a campaign very closely in 1991. Their situation room was near the National Theater, Iganmu. I knew most of the people that worked on that campaign so I knew everything that happened in it.


It has become the norm that any serious party/candidate that is contesting an election must have a situation room.

I am going to post photos of some of the situation rooms that we've had over the years.


PDP's situation room for the 2020 Edo State governorship elections.

To keep an eye on the 'situation' of things in real time as regards the elections

Ti know what's going on in the units and ward collation centers. It's important parties have it.

This question has been on my mind too… but the PDP’s situation room is the most confusing, especially now that it seems like PDP has become a branch of APC

RotrEmmanuel:
N If party delegates can send results from different locations why can't same be transmitted to inec server? Well, you might be enjoying the fraud, but the ball won't be in your court forever. The earlier we fix our society, the better for us all and our future generations yet unborn. Thank you

We can't continue like this!

"If I don't give you 24 hours light dont vite for me again" Tinubu 2023


In a free and fair election, tinubu or APC no fit see draw, they will use all available means to rig themselves in again, they are not interested in good governance

If you don't have polling agents you don't have anything to do with situation room. ...


You will learn the hard way.


Just wait till after 2027 for the right answer 😂🤣😂🤣🤣

I posted this on November 15th, 2025.

🤣 Come laugh with me

1) I watched many politics themed movies and TV series in the 1970s and '80s. I also read many politics themed books. It was quite common that a candidate for an election would have a campaign headquarters. There would be many staff and volunteers at these headquarters and they would carry out all kinds of tasks.

One of the tasks that they would do would be to call people and convince them to vote for the candidate. They could have a list of members of their party or some kind of list of people that they knew would vote for the candidate and they would call these people to remind them to register to vote and help them if they had any problem registering. They would also call them to remind them to go to the voting station and vote.

The staff would also call other people. Remember that we had telephone directories back then. They would call people, regardless of the party that the people support and try to convince them to vote for the candidate.

This seemed normal to me back then.

The APC did something similar ahead of the 2019 elections and the result was hilarious. I saw people complaining online that the APC hacked their phones! Some blamed Pantami and said that he used sim registration to hack their phones. There were all kinds of funny conspiracy theories on Nairaland and on other platforms.

These were simple and regular campaign calls, but these funny people were asking how the APC knew them.

2) I told you that it's not only candidates that have situatio rooms. Media houses, election monitors, civil society organisations, etc also have situation rooms. In fact there is an NGO that is known as Situation Room NG (they have election monitors in the field and a situation room and they publish their reports online).

There is a man that owns several NGOs that use technology to monitor political and civic issues. Now this man is a big time critic of the APC and he and APC supporters often clash online. In fact, it's so bad that a foreign donor once sponsored a project that meant that the man worked at the senate president's office (Ahmed Lawan) and provided technological support. APC supporters went wild. They asked how an "enemy" could be working in the office of an APC politician. They campaigned until the man was forced to resign (I created a thread about it). So the man is no friend of the APC.

The APC had a situation room ahead of the 2023 election and someone posted a photo of Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola looking at a computer screen that had the election results. He was tracking the results on Civic Hive's website. Civic Hive was one of the NGOs that was set up by that critic of the APC.

Obidients went crazy! They said that the photo showed that Fashola was the person that was uploading results to INEC server. They asked what Fashola was doing with INEC server. They said that he had hacked INEC server.

People explained to them that he was simply monitoring the results on Civic Hive's website (Civic Hive had its own situation room and election monitors/observers that fed it election results right from the polling units).

However, Obidients created a new story that Civic Hive had hired Indians to hack INEC server and that was how they were getting the results. Civic Hive had to release a statement to debunk the rumours.

3) Supporters of various politicians were complaining during the 2024 Edo State Governorship elections. PDP members were complaining that the PDP did not have a situation room. They contrasted it with 2020 when the PDP had a very good situation room (some people were also complaining that Labour Party had no situation room).

However, some people pointed out that Governor Godwin Obaseki had personally set up a situation room. I saw photos and videos of that situation room. I also saw something that made me laugh.

An APC supporter posted photos of Governor Obaseki's situation room and claimed that the governor had set up a "high calibre device" in his home town and that he was using it to interfere with "INEC signal". I almost died of laughter. He said that the "device" was being used to interfere with INEC BVAS machines! 🤣

fuckJones:
Iyou don't know the meaning of situation and room?

As a student of Political science, I will like to know the meaning Sir.

Mr Babatunde Raji Fashola at the APC situation room as results came in after the 2023 presidential election.

It was this photo that Obidients saw and then they said that Fashola was the person that was uploading results to the INEC server.

Don't worry, you will find out after APC wins everything

To monitor collation n announcement of result