Source: BBC
Claim: Multiple Facebook users made conflicting claims about voter registration and turnout in the November 16, 2024, Ondo State Governorship Election.
Full Text
The November 16 2024 Ondo State governorship election marked a significant moment in the state’s political landscape. The election featured the incumbent governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC), a former Deputy Governor, Agboola Ajayi of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and others. Aiyedatiwa emerged victorious, winning all 18 local government areas in the election, making it the first governorship candidate to achieve the feat in the state election.
However, despite the historic election result, one of the key issues for concern during the election was the low turnout of voters. This prompted a Facebook user, Lazizi Kazeem Ayodele on November 19 to express dissatisfaction over the low turnout of voters during the election. He posted: “Out of about 2 million voters in Ondo State, less than 500k came out to vote. Really sad!”.
The post was shared by 12 people and the comments under it showed that people believed the figure and shared his concerns. For instance, Jide Owati commented: “People had realised that there is no election in Nigeria but an outright selection. Nevertheless a day is coming.” Atulute Folusho Emmanuel also said: “Why so sad? Voters’ apathy occurred in the last election in Ondo state because most of the electorates no longer believe in the kind of democracy we are practising in Nigeria!”
Another Facebook user, Rilwan Tolani Gomez Ahmed on November 20 said that of the 1.7 million registered voters in Ondo State, only 500,000 voted in the November 16 election. He also expressed worry over the low voter turnout that greeted the election.
His post reads: “If you look at statistics of the voters that participate in Nigeria election it very alarming. How can 36 per cent of the registered voters decide the outcome of an entire Nation.
“In the just concluded US election 63 per cent of the eligible age to vote (18 and above) decide their election.
“In the election in Ondo state last week, out of 1.7m registered voters, only 500k voted. What happened to the remaining 1.2m registered voters?
“I don’t even think the politicians even really need to rig any election because we as a citizen as already even give up by not doing enough.
“Imagine all the half of those 1.2m decide to vote for someone different, these household parties won’t even have a chance at all.
“We need to educate people more about voting (sic)”.
Similarly, Abel Oluwasegun Ogunleye on November 17 claimed that only 20% of the 1.7 million registered voters participated in the election. He expressed worry over the decline of voters’ participation in elections, describing it as a “threat to our democratic process.”
Considering the varying statistics given about the number of registered voters and votes cast during the November 16 Ondo State governorship election, we conducted this fact-check to set the record straight.
Verification
We retrieved information about the election from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). INEC revealed that the election had a total of 2,053,061 registered voters.
However, of these 2,053,061 registered voters, only 1,757,205 collected their Permanent Voter’s Cards (PVCs) to vote in the November 16 election. These figures are also reported here, here and here
To confirm the total number of votes cast in the election, we retrieved the video of the election result announcement from Channels TV, where the State Returning Officer, Professor Olayemi Akinwumi read ( at 2hr: 52min: 10 secs) that there were 497, 077 valid votes, 11, 886 rejected votes and a total of 508, 963 votes cast, indicating that 24.78 per cent of registered voters participated in the election. The results of the election are confirmed by multiple reports found here and here. The key statistics about the registered voters and votes cast in the election are presented in Table 1 below.
Table 1: Key Statistics on the Ondo State 2024 Governorship Election
| Registered voters | 2,053,061 |
| Number of PVCs collected | 1,757,205 |
| Total Valid Votes Cast | 497,077 |
| Rejected Votes | 11,886 |
| Total Votes Cast | 508, 963 |
Source: INEC, Halt Fake
With 24.78 per cent registered voters participation in the election, a report by Dataphyte shows that the election recorded the lowest voter turnout in Ondo State since 1999.
Source: Dataphyte
It is uncommon now to find misleading or false information before, during and post-election.
Electoral Misinformation has become a huge menace to combat in local, state and national elections.
While some electoral disinformation is deliberately spread by actors with ulterior political agenda, some are spread by uninformed citizens.
The latter is the case of the three Facebook accounts with misleading claims this fact-check centred on.
Their concerns were not to deliberately spread false or misleading information about the election but to express concerns about the low turnout that has consistently greeted elections in Ondo State and Nigeria in general.
This, however, underscores the need for more media literacy on information consumption and sharing, especially the information we find on social media platforms.
Conclusion
Based on verified data from the November 16 Ondo State governorship election, a total of 2,053,061 voters were registered, 1,757,205 collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs), and only 508,963 votes were cast on election day.
