- As APC’s Okpebolo Wins
BY ROSEMARY NWAEBUNI/FAVOUR IDUBOR
THE Peoples Democratic Party (PDD) in Edo State, yesterday, rejected the results of the governorship election announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) alleging manipulation of result by the commission in favour of All Progressives Congress (APC),
According to the result announced by the electoral umpire, the candidate of the APC, Senator Monday Okpebolor won 11 Local Government Areas (LGAs) while the PDP candidate, Barr. Barr. Asue Ighodalowon in seven LGAs. The candidate of the Labour party (LP), Barr. Olumide Akpata came distant third having lost in all the LGAs and his polling unit.
The PDP in a letter addressed to INEC Chairman in Abuja and made available to journalists in Benin by the State Chairman of the PDP, Dr Tony Aziegbemi, the party alleged that the votes announced were inflated to favour the APC.
The letter titled: Re: Protest against manufactured vote entries and unjust inflation of APC votes and deduction of PDP votes in the collation of results of Edo State Governorship Election held on 21 September 2024.’
The PDP in the letter, alleged that results from some units in three LGAs – Akoko Edo, Egor and Estako West LGAs were manipulated in favour of APC, calling on the electoral commission to re-collate and re-compute the results.
The letter read, “It has come to our attention that the Electoral Officers appointed by the INEC for the conduct of the Edo State Governorship election made entries that are totally different from the actual results as uploaded on the INEC IREV, thereby unjustly inflating votes in favour of the APC and deducting the votes of the PDP.
” In Akoko Edo LGA, a simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 25,010 votes while 34,847 votes were recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. For the PDP, the number of votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 18,620, but 15,865 were returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“It would interest you that in Ward 9 Akoko Edo LGA, from the 36 Polling Unit results uploaded on the IREV, the total votes obtained by APC is 2,350 while 9104 was entered into the EC8B result for APC. The total number of votes for PDP is 1359, while 633 were entered in the EC8B. Also, in Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, where elections were not held in Ward 6 Units 12, 17, 15, 18, 14 and 16, results were returned for the said polling units in the Ward Result sheet (EC8B).”
It added, ” In Egor LGA, a simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 10,972 votes while 16,760 votes were recorded in the ECBC declared by the LGA Returning Officer. For the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 14,485, but 14,658 were returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. It would interest you to note that the collation of the Egor LGA was not done at the designated LGA centre but was moved to the INEC state headquarters, and the PDP agent was not allowed to be part of the exercise.
“In Etsako West LGA, a simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 29,858 votes while 32,107 votes were recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. For the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 16,712, but 17,483 was returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. The above-highlighted irregularities are very apparent and extremely scandalous, as well as a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP and also a terrible embarrassment to the commission.”
The PDP urged the electoral umpire to immediately re-collate and re-compute the actual results for the various polling units in the ” above highlighted LGAs in compliance with the INEC guidelines and regulations, which mandates that votes from various units and wards be properly collated.”
