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 local government areas.
The party alleged irregularities in the final collation of results for Akoko Edo, Egor, and Etsako West local government areas, asserting that these results do not accurately reflect the outcome of the governorship election held in those areas.
During a press conference in Benin, the state capital, the PDP State Chairman, Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, claimed that the results announced by INEC were manufactured, characterizing them as an unjust inflation of results to favor the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Aziegbemi noted that the figures recorded by INEC’s electoral officers for the three local governments differ significantly from those uploaded on the INEC IReV.
According to him, results were unjustly inflated in favor of the APC, while votes for the PDP were deducted, prompting a call for a correction before the final results were announced.
He stated, “It has come to our attention that the electoral officers appointed by INEC for the conduct of the Edo State governorship election made entries that differ entirely from the actual results as uploaded on INEC IReV, thereby unjustly inflating votes for the APC and deducting votes for 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 indicates that the APC secured 25,010 votes, while 34,847 votes were recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“For the PDP, the collation of votes from the IREV shows 18,620, but only 15,865 were returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“It would be interesting to note that in Ward 9 of Akoko Edo LGA, from the 36 polling unit results uploaded on the IREV, the APC obtained 2,350 votes while 9,104 were recorded as entered into the EC8B result for the APC. For the PDP, the total votes were 1,359 while only 633 were recorded in the EC8B.
“Additionally, in Ward 6 of Akoko Edo LGA, where no elections were conducted in Polling Units 12, 17, 15, 18, 14, and 16, results were still returned for those polling units on the Ward Result sheet (EC8B).”
He elaborated further that in Egor local government, “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, the collation of votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 14,485, but 14,658 were reported on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“It is worth noting that the collation of results for Egor LGA was not conducted at the designated LGA center but was moved to the INEC State Headquarters, and the PDP agent was not granted access to participate in the exercise.
“Similarly, in Etsako West, a simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC received 29,858 votes while 32,107 votes were recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“For the PDP, the collation of votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 16,712, yet 17,483 were returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“The highlighted irregularities are blatantly apparent and represent an egregious attempt to undermine the mandate of the PDP, as well as a significant embarrassment to the commission.”
He called “for the immediate re-collation and recomputation of the actual results for the various polling units in the highlighted Local Government Areas in compliance with INEC guidelines and regulations, which mandate proper collation of votes from various units and wards.
