Electoral Fraud Not One-Sided in 2023 Polls as Labour Party Strongholds Record Highest Irregularities, Study Finds

A detailed statistical analysis of Nigeria’s 2023 general elections has found that electoral irregularities were not limited to any single political party, with areas considered strongholds of the Labour Party recording the highest concentration of anomalies detected in the polls.

The findings are contained in a study conducted as part of a master’s thesis in Data Science at Pan-Atlantic University. The research analysed results from 123,918 polling units across the 36 states and the Federal Capital Territory, applying multiple statistical techniques and machine learning models to identify patterns consistent with electoral manipulation.

President Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress won the presidential election with 8,794,726 votes. Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party came second with 6,984,520 votes, while Peter Obi of the Labour Party placed third with 6,101,533 votes.

Using algorithms including Random Forest classifiers, the researcher flagged 4,351 polling units as anomalous, representing about 3.5 percent of all units analysed. While the figure may appear marginal, the study argues that its significance lies in where the irregularities occurred and how they were concentrated.

“While 3.5 percent may sound small, elections are not decided by national averages,” the study noted. “They are decided by margins, and when anomalies cluster in politically strategic regions, they can easily swing outcomes in close contests.”

According to the analysis, electoral manipulation during the 2023 election was not evenly distributed across the country but was heavily concentrated in specific regions. The South-East emerged as the most affected zone, with several states recording unusually high anomaly rates.

“Anambra State showed an anomaly rate of 24.9 percent. Nearly one in four polling units displayed multiple fraud indicators,” the report stated. “Enugu came in at 16.7 percent, and Imo at 10.9 percent. These aren’t rounding errors or statistical noise. These are neon signs visible from space.”

By contrast, states such as Lagos and Oyo recorded far lower rates. Lagos, despite being the political base of the winning candidate, recorded an anomaly rate of 2.3 percent, while Oyo posted just 0.3 percent. The researcher said these figures undermine claims that the ruling party manipulated the election uniformly across the country.

“The pattern contradicts the simple narrative that ‘the ruling party rigged it everywhere,’” the study said. “The data suggests something more complex and frankly more worrying: electoral manipulation is geographically concentrated, crosses party lines, and appears to follow opportunity rather than ideology.”

One of the most controversial findings of the study is that the Labour Party, rather than the ruling APC, showed the highest concentration of irregularities in areas where it enjoyed overwhelming support. According to the report, the LP accounted for 2,328 instances of what the researcher described as “perfect scores,” where results clustered around suspiciously neat percentages such as 50.00 or 75.00 percent.

“Here’s the twist that should make everyone uncomfortable,” the study stated. “The Labour Party, not the ruling APC, showed the highest concentration of irregularities in its strongholds. Despite winning only about 29.1 percent of the national vote, LP accounted for more than its fair share of statistical red flags.”

The report argues that this finding complicates popular narratives surrounding the 2023 election and suggests that manipulation was carried out by multiple actors at different levels.

“This was not a one-sided affair orchestrated from Aso Rock,” the researcher wrote. “Multiple actors engaged in manipulation wherever they had the opportunity.”

The study also addressed the political sensitivity of its conclusions, particularly regarding the South-East. It cautioned against interpreting the findings as evidence that Peter Obi lacked genuine support in the region.

“This should not be confused with the idea that Peter Obi was unpopular in the South-East,” the report said. “In fact, he was extremely popular. It is precisely that hegemonic popularity that provided cover for electoral manipulation. In a highly contested space, such manipulation is much harder to execute.”

In addition to anomalies detected in uploaded polling unit results, the researcher pointed to discrepancies between those uploads and final figures announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission in some states, suggesting that further manipulation may have occurred outside the scope of the dataset analysed.

“Another thing to note is that this analysis only covers uploaded result sheets,” the study stated. “In some cases, the final numbers announced by INEC differ significantly, indicating additional layers of manipulation.” Rivers State was cited as a major example, where uploaded results suggested a different outcome from the final declaration.

Overall, the research concluded that Nigeria’s 2023 presidential election occupied a grey zone between outright fraud and credible democratic practice. According to the study, while large-scale crude ballot stuffing appears to have declined, it has been replaced by more sophisticated methods designed to look statistically plausible.

“Instead of reporting 100 percent turnout with 95 percent for one candidate, which screams fraud, modern perpetrators report 65 percent turnout with 58 percent for their candidate,” the researcher said. “Plausible. Defensible. Still fraudulent.”

The study concluded that the election “was not catastrophically fraudulent, but neither was it credibly free and fair,” describing it as a reflection of Nigeria’s ongoing struggle between democratic ambition and institutional weakness.

To address these challenges, the researcher recommended independent audits of election data, mandatory real-time transmission of results, unbundling INEC’s operational responsibilities, stronger in-house technical capacity, and the visible prosecution of electoral offenders to deter future manipulation.