Edo poll: Ighodalo urged to accept outcome, PDP kicks

Three weeks after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Senator Monday Okpebholo as the Governor-Elect in Edo State, a pro-democracy group has urged the Peoples Democratic Party and its candidate, Asue Ighodalo, to accept the outcome of the governorship poll.

The Executive Director of the Initiative for Democratic Advancement and Free Speech, Patrick Osaigbovo, appealed in a statement issued in Abuja on Monday.

The development comes one week after Ighodalo’s supporters stormed the INEC office in Benin City demanding what they claim was the PDP candidate’s rightful mandate.

The protesters, carrying placards that read ‘Dr Asue Ighodalo, Governor-Elect we know’ and ‘Edo PDP won the election but INEC and police colluded to change it’ among others expressed dissatisfaction over the outcome of the September 21 elections.
Okpebholo polled 291,667 votes to defeat Ighodalo who garnered 247,274 votes to place second.

But Osaigbovo lamented that in the wake of its loss, the PDP has increased its onslaught on institutions of the Nigerian state, from INEC to 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.”

Reacting, the Deputy Director-General of Media in the PDP Campaign Council, Olu Martins, dismissed the plea.

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.”