The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the Edo State 2024 governorship election.
Announcing Okpebholo as the winner, the State Returning Officer, Prof. Faruk Adamu Kuta, Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, stated that Okpebholo secured 291,667 votes to defeat his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who garnered 247,274 votes.
The Labour Party candidate, Olumide Akpata, a former national chairman of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA), came third with 22,763 votes.
Of the 18 Local Government Areas in the state, the APC won in 10, while the PDP won in eight. However, the PDP, backed by its Governors Forum, maintained that Ighodalo “clearly won the election.”
The PDP rejected the outcome of the election, asserting that its candidate had indeed won.
In a statement on Sunday, the PDP’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, explained that Governor Ahmadu Fintiri presented results from the polling units that showed Ighodalo in a clear lead.
The PDP declared, “The Peoples Democratic Party stands by the results of the Edo State governorship election as recorded by its polling agents across the state, and echoed by the Chairman of the Edo PDP National Campaign Council, Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State, which indicate that the PDP candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo, clearly won the election.”
The statement continued, “The PDP asserts that the rush, venom, and insults with which the All Progressives Congress attacked Governor Fintiri only confirm the APC’s violent desperation to cover its manipulations and steal the mandate freely given to Dr. Asue Ighodalo by the people of Edo State, as reflected in the genuine votes cast at the polling units.
“As Governor Fintiri presented, the results collated from the polling units showed Asue Ighodalo in a clear lead before the state collation exercise was hijacked by the APC, which, with the connivance of some unscrupulous INEC and security officials, engaged in the blatant alteration and substitution of the genuine results with fabricated figures in favor of the defeated APC candidate.”
