The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has rejected the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State, alleging “brazen” rigging in the poll.
The Acting National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Umar Damagum, at a press conference on Monday, said the party will explore all legal and democratic means to retrieve “the stolen mandate” of its candidate, Asue Ighodalo.
“The PDP charges the people of Edo State to remain resolute and undeterred as our Party takes sure and firm steps to retrieve the mandate with every means legal and available in a democracy,” Damagum said some hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the candidate of Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the keenly contested election.
INEC said the APC candidate secured 291,667 votes, Ighodalo with 247,274 votes and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) with 22,763 votes.
However, the PDP national chairman accused the APC of conniving with government-controlled agencies to rig out the PDP candidate.
“It is clear that our democracy is under threat,” Damagum said, alleging that the election was “barefacedly compromised by the APC in collusion with unpatriotic security operatives and heavily procured officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), who viciously trampled on the votes of the people in defiance of the Law and total disregard to the Sovereign Will of the people of Edo State”.
He said, “You may recall that the PDP had on several occasions alerted of this sinister plot by the APC to subvert the election, the roles allegedly being played by AIG Zone 7, Benneth Igwe and Edo State Commissioner of Police CP Nemo Edwin-Iwo and the appointment of a known APC apologist and supporter, Dr. Anugbum Onuoha, as the Edo State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
“Several demands by our Party for the redeployment of these officials as well as the release of all arrested PDP members and supporters fell on deaf ears and tend to validate PDP’s suspicion of a top-level conspiracy to rig the Edo State governorship election.
“As Nigerians already know, despite the violence, intimidation and manipulations by the APC, results obtained from the Polling Units show that our candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo clearly won the election before the figures were altered at the State collation exercise in favour of the defeated APC candidate.
“The PDP therefore unequivocally rejects the final result of the Edo State Governorship election as declared by INEC as it did not meet the minimum standard for democracy having not reflected the expressed will and aspiration of the people in line with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and INEC Guidelines for State Governorship election.
“The PDP demands that INEC within the time stipulated by Section 65 of the Electoral Act, 2022 review the Edo State governorship election and announce results only as obtained from the genuine votes cast at the Polling Units.”
