The People’s Democratic Party (PDP) made an appeal on Sunday to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Mahmood Yakubu, urging him to conduct a thorough review of the compiled results from the Edo governorship election before making the ultimate announcement
Dr. Anthony Aziegbemi informed reporters in Benin that the electoral officers’ recorded data significantly varied from the authentic results uploaded on INEC IREV at the polling stations.
Aziegbemi noted that the results had allegedly been inflated in favour of the All Progressives Congress (APC) through deducted votes from the PDP.
He alleged that in Akoko-Edo, votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV showed that the APC obtained 25,010 while 34,847 votes was recorded in the EC8C declared by the local government returning officer.
“While for the PDP, the results uploaded on the IREV is 18,620 but 15,865 was recorded on the EC8C declared by the returning officer.
“It would interest you to know that in ward 9, Akoko Edo LGA, from the 36 polling units results uploaded on the IREV, the total votes obtained by APC is 2,350 while 9,104 was entered into the EC8C result for APC.
”The total votes for PDP is 1,359 while 633 was entered in the EC8C.
“Also, in Ward six Akoko Edo, where elections did not hold in units 12, 17, 15, 18, 14 and 16, results were returned for the said polling units in the ward result sheet (EC8C), ” he said.
Also in Egor, Aziegbemi alleged that votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV showed that the APC obtained 10,972 votes while 16,760 votes was recorded in the EC8C declared.
“While for the PDP, the results uploaded on the IREV is 14,485 but 14,658 was returned on the EC8C declared by the local government returning officer.
”It would interest you to note that the collation of Egor was not done at the designated LGA centre but was moved to the INEC state headquarters and the PDP agent was not allowed access to be part of the exercise, ” he added.
According to him, there are also similar discrepancies in Etsako West, were results uploaded on the IREV are totally different from the results recorded on the EC8C declared by the returning officer.
He said: “The above highlighted irregularities which are very apparent are extremely scandalous and a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP.
“We, therefore, demand the immediate re-collation and recompilation 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.”