The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Edo State has rejected the results of the governorship election declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in three of the local government areas.
The party alleged irregularities in the final collation of the results for Akoko Edo, Egor and Etsako West local government areas, saying the results were not the true position of the outcome of the governorship election held in the three local governments.
Speaking during a press conference in Benin, the state capital, the State’s Chairman of PDP, Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, alleged that the results announced by INEC were manufactured, describing it as unjust inflation of results to favour the All Progressives Congress (APC)
Aziegbemi said the entries of the INEC electoral officers in the three local governments as the results for the three local government areas are different from what was uploaded on INEC IReV.
According to him, the results were unjustly inflated in favour of the APC, while the PDP votes were deducted and called for the reversal of the error before the announcement of the final results.
He stated, “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 local government area, 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.
“While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 18,620 but 15,865 was 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 9,104 was entered into the EC8B result for APC. The total votes for PDP is 1359 while 633 were entered in the EC8B.
“Also, in Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, where elections did not hold 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)”
He explained further that in Egor local government, “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 ECBC 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 in Etsako West, 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 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.”
He however called “for 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 mandates that votes from various units and wards be properly collated.
Meanwhile, some PDP youths and supporters stormed the State’s headquarters of INEC on Sunday afternoon, protesting over the alleged manipulation of the governorship results released so far in the state.
The INEC has announced the result of 17 out of 18 local government areas in the state, with APC leading with over 50,000 votes winning 11 of the 17 local government areas while PDP won in six local governments.
The protesters who converged on the INEC office in Benin City, chanting various solidarity songs alleged INEC of being biased in the election, alleged that the results announced so far had been altered.
The angry youths and supporters said the results announced were different from what they had from the polling units.
One of the protesters, who simply identified himself as Frank alleged that the results had been tampered with, on the INEC portal .
He called on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and investigate the matter and said, ” What we are saying is that we will not allow anyone to tamper with the wish of Edo people.
“People have voted our candidate (Ighodalo) and some people want to use the power from above to turn the results upside down, we won’t accept it. No we won’t.
“We have the authentic results with us and the ones they announced are different, that means someone has tampered with the results, we will not take it .
“We are appealing to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in this matter, some people should not burn our state.”
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