Yiaga Africa has said the 2026 Ekiti State off-cycle governorship election recorded notable improvements in election-day administration, as well as some critical gaps.

Aisha Abdullahi, the chairperson of Yiaga’s 2026 Ekiti State election observation mission, made the remark on Sunday during a press briefing held at the Afe Babalola Civic Center in Ado-Ekiti.

Ms Abdullahi said improvements recorded in the election held on Saturday include the early deployment of officials and materials, the timely commencement of accreditation and voting, as well as the overall peaceful conduct of the process.

Ms Abdullahi stated that security agencies, particularly the Nigeria Police, maintained a commendable level of professionalism during the election exercise.

She, however, noted that the election exposed critical gaps in results management, voter turnout computation, consistency of sensitive materials, as well as public communication of late administrative and judicial changes affecting the election.

“In addition, widespread reports of vote buying and voter inducement undermined the integrity of voter choice and remains a serious threat to credible elections,” she said.

Ms Abdullahi said Yiaga’s 250 observers and 22 mobile observers observed the early arrival of polling officials and materials across the 16 local government areas in the state.

“As of 7:30 a.m., #WatchTheVote observers reported that INEC officials had arrived at 75% of polling units. This increased to 99% by 8:30 a.m., indicating significant improvement in the timely deployment of election personnel and materials,” she said.

On the performance of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), Yiaga Africa said it observed that BVAS functioned effectively in 87 per cent of polling units but briefly malfunctioned in 13 per cent of the other polling units.

“In 98% of polling units, the BVAS had zero records for the total number of accredited voters on the BVAS before the commencement of the process. In 10% of polling units, some voters were refused accreditation because the BVAS did not verify their PVC or authenticate their fingerprints or facial biometrics,” Ms Abdullahi noted.

Assessing the quality of the counting exercise during the election, Yiaga said that in 98 per cent of polling units, polling officials showed how every ballot paper was marked to everyone present.

“At 89 per cent of polling units, the official results were posted for the public to see. At 88 per cent of polling units, presiding officers used the BVAS to scan/take a snapshot of the Result Form EC8A and transmit to the IReV,” she said.

Ms Abdullahi added, “90 per cent of polling units transferred the results from validated Form EC8A to the e-EC8A on the BVAS.”

She urged the electoral commission to clarify the inconsistency in the total number of registered voters used for the calculation of voter turnout and take necessary steps to correct possible errors.

“The use of incumbency powers and state resources must be effectively regulated to guarantee a level playing field for all contestants,” she noted.

“A healthy democracy depends on a virile opposition and the abuse of incumbency advantage erodes the competitiveness on which electoral legitimacy rests,” Ms Abdullahi said.