How a fake zero could completely ruin the 2019 general elections

However, this is what has happened in the 2019 Bauchi governorship election.

When the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) initially finished collation of the March 9 election, it was declared inconclusive due to a mathematical dilemma.

According to the "Margin of Lead Principle" contained in Sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act and paragraph 41(e) and 43(b) of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines, the commission cannot declare a winner if the number of cancelled votes can mathematically affect the outcome of the election.

So, for instance, if the margin of victory between the first-placed candidate and the second-placed candidate is 100, the number of cancelled votes cannot be any more than 99.

If the number of cancelled votes is 101, or higher, then the election will have to be declared inconclusive since the second-placed candidate can mathematically win the election if all 101 voters cast their votes for just that candidate.

Governorship elections are currently inconclusive in five states, excluding Bauchi ece-auto-gen

After the collation of results in Bauchi, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bala Mohammed, polled 469,512 votes while his closest rival and incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 465,453 votes to finish in second place, leaving the margin of victory at a slight 4,059 votes.

Due to the improper collation of votes from the Tafawa Balewa local government area of the state, returning officer, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, rejected it, an act which meant the state ended up with 45,312 cancelled votes. This triggered an inconclusive verdict.

The only way to resolve an inconclusive election is for INEC to conduct supplementary election in the areas where votes were cancelled; so, on Tuesday, March 12, the commission announced that the supplementary election would take place in Bauchi on March 23, alongside five other states (Adamawa, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto) where governorship elections were similarly inconclusive.

However, the Bauchi supplementary election was cancelled three days later after INEC discovered an incredibly alarming error that could now have far-reaching impact on the integrity of the 2019 general elections.

Bauchi's Governor Mohammed Abubakar has hinted that he'll take legal action against INEC for cancelling the supplementary election ece-auto-gen

A fact-finding committee set up by the commission discovered that the number of cancelled votes in four polling units in Ningi LGA was recorded as 25,330 even though the correct figure was actually 2,533.

That wayward zero added an extra 22,797 cancelled votes to contribute to the inconclusive verdict initially reached by the commission. INEC also decided to approve the resumption, conclusion and announcement of result for the Tafawa Balewa LGA, rendering the inconclusive verdict null and void.

While the election would still have been inconclusive without the addition of that extra zero, its implication in the general sense now casts a worrying cloud for INEC and many winners of various elections, biggest of them all, President Muhammadu Buhari who won re-election.

The 2019 general elections are not quite over yet, but many have fallen for the temptation of labelling them the worst in the nation's history, for a host of reasons.

One of the most recurring blemish recorded against the elections is allegations of widespread electoral manipulation, allegations most commonly raised by the PDP against INEC and the APC.

For example, in his rejection of the result of the presidential election that led to Buhari's victory, main opposition candidate, Atiku Abubakar, said, among other things, that he observed a "statistical impossibility" in results from certain states of interest, especially in places ravaged by terrorism in the northeast region and his own stronghold states in the south.

Atiku (left) doesn't believe that the presidential election, which he lost to Buhari (right) by 3.9 million votes, was fairly conducted Pulse Nigeria

While the Bauchi case does not necessarily make his claims 100% credible, it does make you think about a lot of possibilities, as soon as you can determine if the fake zero is a genuine error or a deliberate sabotage of the process.

That INEC caught this "error" by itself is incredibly lucky for the reputation of the commission's integrity in the conduct of the election. However, it still raises credible scepticism about the entire process if such a thing can slip by in the first place.

The most obvious question to ask is, "Is Bauchi where it stops, or is there more where that came from?"

Many losers of the elections are already queuing up to contest various results at tribunals and it's curious to see how many more improprieties and mistakes will be discovered when everything hits full stride.

How many errant zeros have possibly turned wins into losses and losses into wins in the 2019 general elections? Did it stop at errant zeros? Maybe a few 1s or 7s were also misplaced down the line? If zeros can appear out of nowhere, can they also disappear?

INEC has had to battle many challenges with conducting the 2019 general elections and has also had to deal with a lot of public distrust for the way everything has gone, both deserved and undeserved.

A numerical error, or a catalogue of yet-to-be-discovered errors, is one that the commission cannot afford to take on as the elections wind to a close.

While many are already convinced that the elections are the worst conducted in the history of the country, there's still a few miles to go before that verdict can be conclusive.

Time will tell on how much unraveling there is to come.