Edo: ‘PDP Lost Even Before The Election’ – Group Asserts

A pro-democracy group has asserted that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, lost the recently concluded governorship election in Edo State even before the civic exercise began.

Three weeks ago, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Senator Monday Okpebholo as the Governor-Elect of Edo State following a keenly contested poll.

However, the PDP and its supporters have disagreed with the outcome of the poll.

Some of of the Ighodalo supporters protested at the INEC office in Benin City, demanding what they believe to be the rightful mandate of the PDP candidate.

The demonstrators, holding signs that proclaimed ‘Dr Asue Ighodalo, Governor-Elect we know’ and ‘Edo PDP won the election, but INEC and police colluded to change it,’ among other messages, voiced their discontent with the results of the elections held on September 21.

Naija News recalls that Okpebholo received 291,667 votes, surpassing Ighodalo, who secured 247,274 votes, placing him in second position.

However, the pro-democracy group has asked the PDP to acknowledge the gubernatorial election results.

In a statement made available to newsmen in Abuja on Monday, Patrick Osaigbovo, the Executive Director of the Initiative for Democratic Advancement and Free Speech, expressed concern that, in the aftermath of its defeat, the PDP has intensified its attacks on various institutions of the Nigerian state, including INEC and security agencies.

He said, “Such onslaughts are a carryover of its pre-election strategy of using crass propaganda to attempt to intimidate state institutions and pull a wool over the faces of the electorate.

“As a governance advocacy group committed to deepening Nigeria’s electoral democracy, we daresay that the PDP through its own actions and or inactions lost the people even before the election. By INEC guidelines, results are to be uploaded to its Results Viewing Portal iREV when the last person on the line finishes voting.

“However, the PDP began churning out its own results from its so-called ‘Situation Room’ as early as 10 am, purporting them to be from the iReV. Churning out results from units where voters were still in the queue was only meant to serve a predetermined outcome and therefore set the stage for post-election violence in the state.

“The PDP ought to have understood by now that election observer groups are not the same as election monitors. Nigeria has only one election monitor – INEC. Observer groups are meant to observe. They have no locus to reject any results as declared by INEC. The PDP should stop building castles in the air and start preparing for the 2028 election.”

The Allegations Are Baseless

In a swift reaction, the Deputy Director-General of Media in the PDP Campaign Council, Olu Martins, lampooned the plea of the said group.

Martins also debunked the insinuation that the party was sponsoring some election observers as baseless.

He said, “The allegations are baseless. The election observers are not new guys in the system. They have been observing election processes.

“We should improve our electoral system. Many of the observers concluded that the processes were free and fair at the units.”