The Lagos State chapter of the All Progressives Congress APC has faulted claims that Labour Party presidential candidate Peter Obi was defeated in the 2023 election by conspiracy, citing findings from an independent data driven report on the poll.
The party said the report offers a “sobering, factual explanation for one of the most striking paradoxes of the 2023 presidential election: Peter Obi’s near mythical dominance in the South East and his resounding electoral collapse across the rest of Nigeria.”
In a statement signed by the party’s spokesman, Seye Oladejo, the APC said the conclusions of the report were based on empirical evidence rather than political speculation.
“This is not political conjecture. It is mathematics, statistics, and electoral geography speaking plainly,” Oladejo said.
According to him, the study showed that Anambra State recorded a 24.9 percent anomaly rate, meaning nearly one in four polling units displayed multiple fraud indicators. Enugu recorded 16.7 percent, while Imo had 10.9 percent. He noted that the three states accounted for a disproportionate share of the 4,351 anomalous polling units identified nationwide out of 123,918 analysed.
By contrast, Oladejo said Lagos State recorded an anomaly rate of 2.3 percent, while Oyo State recorded just 0.3 percent.
“In an election decided by margins running into hundreds of thousands of votes, such clusters of ‘perfect scores,’ suspiciously round percentages, and statistically improbable vote distributions, 2,328 of which were traced largely to LP strongholds, are not trivial. They are electorally consequential,” he said.
Oladejo argued that the statistical findings explain why Obi recorded overwhelming margins in the South East but suffered heavy losses across the North, South West, South South, and parts of the Middle Belt, where he said competitive political environments made electoral manipulation more difficult.
He stressed that Obi’s popularity was not in dispute but maintained that dominance in one region does not excuse irregularities.
“The report correctly acknowledges that Peter Obi enjoyed genuine popularity in the South East. Lagos APC does not dispute this. However, the study exposes an inconvenient but critical truth: hegemonic popularity is precisely the environment in which subtle electoral manipulation thrives,” he said.
He added that in regions where opposition voices are muted, scrutiny of results is weaker, allowing questionable figures to pass unnoticed.
“Plausible fraud, 58 percent here, 65 percent turnout there, slips through as defensible, even when fraudulent,” Oladejo said.
According to him, politically pluralistic states such as Lagos, Oyo, Kaduna, and Plateau naturally constrain such practices due to the presence of multiple strong parties, vigilant agents, and active civil society.
“Let the record be stated plainly: Peter Obi secured only 29.1 percent of the total votes cast nationwide. He placed third overall, behind both APC and PDP. Outside the South East, his performance was not merely weak. It was catastrophic for anyone presented as a serious national alternative,” he said.
Oladejo maintained that the report neither delegitimises Nigeria’s democracy nor invalidates the 2023 election.
“What it does and does powerfully is restore honesty to a debate long polluted by emotion, misinformation, and selective outrage,” he said.
He concluded that Obi was not defeated by conspiracy but by electoral realities.
“He was defeated by electoral arithmetic, national spread requirements, competitive politics, and his failure to translate regional enthusiasm into national acceptability.
“The Lagos State APC welcomes further independent audits, stronger technological safeguards, and the visible prosecution of offenders across all parties.
“Democracy is best served not by mythology, but by truth. And the numbers, once again, refuse to lie,” Oladejo added.
