• Call for Commission review of results
From our political desk, Benin
As the umpire; Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) rounds up collation of results for the 2024 Governorship election in Edo State, the ruling Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has called for the suspension of the declaration of the final results.
The Party while making this call, raised the alarm that from its preliminary analysis of the results released by the INEC, it has observed what it termed; "massive discripancies in the three different stages of the results in nearly all the local Government area in the State.
The PDP through its State Chairman, Tony Aziegbemwin in a media briefing Sunday evening in Benin, made the allegations and call.
According to the Party,
the form EC8A is the primary document from which election results are supposed to be transmitted.
"Those result sheets are basically uploaded unto a platform created by INEC known as the IReV.
"As it is expected, the results from the form EC8A should or ought to be the same as the ones on the IReV.
"Also, the results with the Chief collating officer at the Local Government area or at the Ward should be the same as the ones on INEC IReV."
The PDP said there is a provision in the electoral Act which empowers the INEC to do a review of results before they are finally announced.
So it urged the INEC to capitalize on this provision to correct the alleged discrepancies before the final collation, authentication and announcement of the results.
"If INEC fails to do that it will undermine the gains made by the various past leaders of the Commission.
"You cannot have three different figures for the same election; it is not possible, something is wrong and we are saying INEC; look at it before you make your final declaration!
"The collated results from INEC portal for Akoko Edo Local Government Area shows that the APC scored 25,010 votes, the Local Government Returning entered 34,847 adding that while the PDP scored 18,620 as shown by results on INEC portal, 15,865 was entered into the result sheet."
In a petition to the Chairman of INEC, a copy of which was made available to newsmen at the media briefing; the Party stated: "It has come to our attention that the Electoral Officers appointed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the Edo State Governorship election, made entries that are totally different from the actual results as uploaded on the INEC IREV, thereby unjustly inflating votes in favour of the APC and deducting the votes of the PDP.
"For specifics please find below the following;
AKOKO EDO LGA
"A simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 25,010 votes while 34,847 votes were recorded in the form EC8A declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
"While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is
18,620 but 15,865 was returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
"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 9,104 was entered into the EC8B result for APC. The total votes for PDP is 1,359 while 633 was entered in the EC8B.
"Also, in Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, were elections did not hold 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)."
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 EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 14,485 but 14,658 was 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 HQ and the PDP agent was not allowed access to be part of the exercise.
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. While 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 which are very apparent, are extremely scandalous and a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP and also a
terrible embarrassment to the Commission.
"We therefore demand the immediate re-collation and re-computation 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 vote from various units and wards be properly collated".
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