Edo 2024 poll: Sanctity of the ballot and Asue Ighodalo

I want to advise INEC on the conduct of the September 21, 2024, governorship election in Edo State. I want to describe the outcome of the election as a solidly stolen mandate of the people of Edo State. The outcome of the election helped champion the call for more electoral reforms in the process of institutionalising the sanctity of the electoral ballot in Nigeria. Results from EC8A and IREV clearly showed that PDP won the election. I want to note that like in Nigeria’s previous elections, particularly the pre-2011 elections where dead voters and votes held sway, the result as announced at the INEC office in Benin City was robotically created and manipulated at the INEC office in Benin City during the collation of results.

Asue Ighodalo won from the result of the IREV, and the Edo 2024 election is demographically and scientifically contestable because INEC violated the 2022 Electoral Act. The Edo 2024 election also did not pass the litmus test of common sense. I could not believe that the losers in IREV could be declared the winners even when the facts were clear and credible; I want to describe it as unhealthy for the democratic process.

Today, for reasons of parochial and material interests, defeated politicians, their slaves, and others have refused to adopt the natural and universal best parameters for determining credible polls and their results.

Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the PDP, has vowed to support the struggle to restore the sanctity of the law and ballot and uphold democracy in the country in compliance with Section 7 of the 1999 Constitution as amended. He has been at the forefront of the movement for the restoration of his mandate, and he has rendered several sacrifices to uphold democracy in the country.

Restoration of Sanctity of the Law and Ballot Box: With the conduct of the Edo Election, the sanctity of the ballot box will help restore Asue Ighodalo as governor of Edo State. The behaviour of APC at the INEC Office has, again, shown that elections are not won on the pages of newspapers or by the enormity of media propaganda or noise-making.

The great people of Edo State have adamantly refused to be contaminated by the propaganda virus of Africa’s noisiest national ruling political party in Nigeria. This is the most striking thing about the giant strides at restoring the sanctity of the ballot box in the country’s electoral polity.

When APC lost in Edo in the 2020 poll, they relocated to the pages of newspapers and screens of politically oiled television stations and radios. When their propaganda refused to make public relevance, they filed papers in court and took over the functions of its proceedings on the pages of newspapers and visual/audio media, yet in the end, their arguments became “orbiter dictum” and woefully failed the litmus test of “ratio decidendi.” They cried and ran to the court of first instance for “justice,” but the court, in her hallowed wisdom, sent them packing.

Read also: INEC’s integrity rating further drops on back of Edo election

More than 25 accredited domestic observers that observed the 2024 Edo Governorship Election rejected and expressed concern over the transparency of the collation of the 21st September Edo Governorship Election from the collation of some wards and local governments by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). They were satisfied with the more than 4,500 polling unit results and some ward results. They rejected the collation of some wards and local governments results in the INEC office, Benin City, contrary to the provision of the Electoral Act 2022, and rejected the result announced by INEC. INEC complied with the Electoral Act 2022 at the polling unit level and violated it at some wards and local government levels. They rejected the result declared because there are two sets of result sheets. One was taken to the field and another one to the INEC office in Benin City.

They observed that the military and police disrupted the collation of results at some wards and local government collation centres, including intimidation of INEC officials that collated results contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act and INEC guidelines. There is significant concern about the credibility of the results collection process. They totally rejected the result of the election, which declared the All Progressive Congress APC candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo. There was militarisation and use of impunity at wards, local governments, and state collation centres.

INEC, military, and police have clearly violated the provision of Electoral Act 2022 concerning the collation of results in government elections. Results were only collated at units and some wards.

Provision in Election Act 2022:

The presiding officers send the results of the poll to the RA Collation Officer;

RA Collation Officer collates and sends results to LGA Collation Officer;

LGA Collation Officer collates results and sends them to the State Returning Officer;

The State Returning Officer collates results from LGA Collation Centres, declares the result, and returns the winner as Governor-elect for the state.

Results were only collated at the units and some wards before the military and police carried out a coup in the Edo 2024 Governorship Election, and we are still waiting at ward collation centres for the continuation of the exercise.

More than 25 accredited domestic field election observers for the September 21st Edo State Governorship Election observed the units that were rigged and wanted to clarify the units and wards where electoral frauds were committed. The results of these units were not uploaded into INEC IREV on September 21, 2024, because they were fraudulent in nature more than five days after the election. The highest fraud was committed in violation of the 2022 Electoral Act, which stipulates the electronic transmission of unit results.

The polling units represented the axis of Edo 2024 electoral fraud; the results of the units were not uploaded on the IREV Portal of INEC more than five days after the election. They were not uploaded because of the planned manipulation of the above polling unit results. Nigerians are watching INEC that cannot upload the above polling unit results more than one week after the Edo 2024 Election. Nigerians are waiting for INEC to ask for more money or investment to digitise INEC.

Inwalomhe Donald writes via [email protected]