Civil Society Organizations (CSOs), which monitored the Edo State governorship election on Saturday, have issued a damning review of the exercise, declaring that the results from several polling units were altered at coalition centres.
The civil society coalition, the Situation Room, said the conduct of the election lacked credibility. Similarly, Yiaga Africa, which said it deployed the Process and Results Verification for Transparency (PRVT) methodology for the Edo election, involving 300 stationary and 25 roving observers, covering a representative sample of polling units (PUs) across all 18 local government areas of the state, faulted the conduct of the poll and the declared results as lacking integrity.
Yiaga Africa, one of the accredited observers of Saturday’s off-cycle governorship election, discredited the election because of widespread irregularities that included alteration of results by the collation officers. The CSOs called on INEC to review the results based on what was uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal within the time stipulated by section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022.
On Tuesday, there were calls for review of the results as the leadership of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) hinted that the party would go to court to challenge the declaration of Monday Okpebholo of the APC as the winner of the poll and governor-elect of Edo State.
National Chairman of PDP, Ambassador Iliya Damagum, gave the hint while addressing a press conference at the party’s national secretariat in Abuja. Damagum expressed confidence in the judiciary, saying the integrity of the third arm of government would be put to the test before Nigerians. He insisted that the PDP candidate, Asue Ighodalo, won the election.
