By The results of the state governorship election, as declared thus far by the Independent National Electoral Commission, have been disputed by the Peoples Democratic Party chapter in Edo State.
According to the commission’s preliminary results, the PDP won six local governments while the All Progressives Congress won ten of the state’s eighteen local government districts.
The ruling party claimed that the votes that have been announced thus far had been manipulated to favor the APC in a letter that was sent to the INEC office chairman in Abuja and made accessible to media in Benin on Sunday. The letter was signed by Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, the state chairman of the PDP.
Re: Protest against falsified vote inputs, unfair APC vote inflation, and PDP vote subtraction in the results of the Edo State governorship election held on September 21, 2024
In the letter, the chairman demanded that the election commission recollect and recalculate the results, claiming that certain units in the three local governments of Akoko Edo, Egor, and Estako West Local Government Areas had produced false results.
“We have discovered that the INEC-appointed Electoral Officers for the Edo State Governorship election have entered results that differ significantly from the official ones uploaded on the INEC IREV. This has led to the unfair manipulation of the results, with the APC’s vote total exceeding the PDP’s.
“In Akoko Edo LGA, the APC received 25,010 votes according to a straightforward collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results submitted on the IREV, but 34,847 votes were reported in the EC8C announced by the LGA Returning Officer. The PDP received 18,620 votes according to the figures put on the IREV, however the LGA Returning Officer announced that 15,865 votes were returned on the EC8C.
“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 asked the INEC to immediately re-collate and recompute 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.”
