BENIN – Civil society organisations and election observers, who monitored Saturday’s Edo State gubernatorial election and political pundits on Sunday, said the brazen manner with which the poll was rigged signposts what Nigerians should expect in the 2027 general election.
The stakeholders, who were miffed at the conduct of the election by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), described the election as worse in decades.
They said they would be shocked if the electoral umpire accepts the results. They said they were not collated at the ward and local government areas before being taken to the state level, noting that most of the unit results do not tally with the final outcome at the INEC state headquarters.
According to the national chairman of the PDP Campaign Council for the Edo State governorship election and governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri while briefing journalists on the situation of the election, “the election processes were violently interrupted in some places and the materials were taken to the Independent National Electoral Commission’s headquarters in Benin instead of starting from the local government level.
“Besides, the collation process was violently interrupted in several local government areas across the State.
,”In Edo South, local government collation processes were stopped in Oredo, Ikpoba-Okha, and Egor and moved illegally to the State Headquarters of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Benin on the instructions of an Assistant Inspector General (AIG) in complete breach of the statutory collation process.
“Affected Party Agents and representatives were then ordered to converge on the INEC State Headquarters in Aduwawa, Ikpoba Okha Local Government Area for the completion of the collation exercise.
“Upon arrival, agents of the PDP were not allowed into the INEC State Office for the exercise. On the other hand, agents of the APC were allowed unfettered access into the INEC premises to participate in the collation process.
“This was also in breach of the Electoral Act section on neutrality as well as the rules and regulations published for these elections.
“At about 9pm senior party officials of the All Progressives Congress (APC) accompanied by the police stormed the Etsako West Local Government collation center and began shooting indiscriminately.
“As a result of the attack, the council Vice Chairman, Honorable Benji Ojetu was left in critical condition from a shooting injury. Because of this assault, the expected results from Wards 7 and 11 were not delivered.
“At the INEC state office a 2km-long garrison barricade was created by the Police to cordon-off access, thereby restricting movement in the area.
“It took the protest of Governor Godwin Obaseki to make an entry into the State INEC office and register the displeasure of the PDP with the irregularities of the collation process.
Announcing the position of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Edo State, the state chairman, Tony Aziegbemi faulted the election results so far collated by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, disclosing that there are massive irregularities from the results based on the party, (PDP) preliminary analysis.
Briefing newsmen in Benin, Aziegbemi said INEC Electoral Officers appointed 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 votes from the PDP.
He listed Akoko-Edo, Egor and Etsako West LGAs disagreed with the Electoral umpire.
“It would interest you in Ward 9 Akoko Edo LGA. From the 36 Poling Units 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 votes for PDP is 1359 while 633 was entered in the EC8B.
“Also, in Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, where elections did not hold in Ward 6 Unit 12, 17, 15, 18, 14 and 16, results were returned for the said poling units in the ward Result sheet (EC8B).
“In Egor , 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 was recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 14,485 but 14,658 was 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 HQ and the PDP agent was not allowed access to be part of the exercise.
“Also at Etsako LGA, a simple colletion 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 was recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While 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 which are very apparent are extremely scandalous and a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP and also a terrible embarrassment to the commission.
Advertisement
“We therefore demand the immediate re-collation and recomputation of the actual results for the various polling units in the above highlighted Local Government Areas in compliance with the INEC guidelines and regulations which mandate that votes from various units and wards be properly collated.” Aziegbemi declared.
Meanwhile, the results of the 17 local government areas released by
the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, are as follows:
LGA: Igueben
APC: 5907
PDP:8470
LP 494
Owan West
APC: 12277
PDP:11,284
LP:201
Esan South East LGA
PDP:14,199
APC:8,398
LP:98
Ovia North East LGA
PDP:15,311
APC:13,225
LP:1,675
Esan West
APC:12,952
LP:342
PDP:1100
Uhunmwonde LGA
PDP:9339
APC:8776
LP:769
Egor LGA
APC:16760
PDP:14658
LP:1966
Ovia South West LGA
PDP:10260
LP:849
APC:10150
Esan North East LGA
LP:194
PDP:12522
APC:10648
Orhionmwon LGA
PDP:14614
LP:556
APC:16059
Esan Central LGA
APC:10990
PDP:8618
LP:418
Owan East LGA
PDP:14189
LP:446
APC:19380
Akoko-Edo LGA
PDP:15865
APC:34,847
LP:2239
Etsako East LGA
APC:20,167
LP:604
PDP:9683
Etsako Central LGA
LP:381
PDP:8455
APC:11,906
Etsako West LGA
PDP:17483
LP:2116
APC:32107
Oredo
PDP 24938
APC 30780
LP 5389
