The Edo State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has raised serious concerns about alleged irregularities in the recently collated governorship election results from 16 local government areas (LGAs) in the state.
The party formally petitioned Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), over what it described as “massive irregularities” in the voting process.
Dr. Tony Aziegbemi, the state chairman of the PDP, conveyed these allegations in a protest letter to the INEC chairman. In the letter, titled “Protest Against Manufactured Vote Entries and Unjust Deduction of PDP Votes in the Collation of Results of Edo State Governorship Election”, Aziegbemi accused INEC-appointed electoral officers of manipulating the results in favor of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by inflating their votes and deducting those of the PDP.
Citing multiple discrepancies in the results, Aziegbemi stated, “A simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit [Akoko-Edo] 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.”
He went on to point out a similar discrepancy for the PDP, where 18,620 votes were recorded on the IREV, but only 15,865 were returned in the official results.
The PDP chairman highlighted specific wards, including Ward 9 in Akoko Edo LGA, where significant differences were noted.
“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,” he revealed. In the same ward, PDP’s total votes stood at 1,359 on IREV, yet only 633 votes were officially recorded.
Aziegbemi further claimed that elections did not hold in several polling units within Ward 6, yet results were still returned for those units. “In Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, elections did not hold in Units 12, 17, 15, 18, 14, and 16, yet results were reflected in the Ward Result sheet (EC8B).”
The discrepancies, according to the PDP, extend beyond Akoko Edo LGA. Aziegbemi alleged that in Egor LGA, the collation process was moved from the designated LGA center to the INEC State Headquarters without the presence of the PDP agent, further raising concerns of foul play.
The protest letter also pointed to Etsako West LGA, where Aziegbemi asserted that “the APC obtained 29,858 votes according to IREV, but 32,107 votes were declared in the official EC8C results.” For the PDP, while 16,712 votes were recorded on IREV, the official result showed 17,483 votes.
“These highlighted irregularities are scandalous and represent a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP,” Aziegbemi declared, adding that the situation is “a terrible embarrassment to the commission.”
In light of these findings, the PDP is demanding an immediate re-collation and recomputation of the results in accordance with INEC’s guidelines.
“We demand the immediate re-collation and recomputation of the actual results for the various polling units in the above-highlighted Local Government Areas,” Aziegbemi concluded, urging INEC to rectify the discrepancies to ensure a fair and transparent electoral process.
