Accept outcome of Edo guber election, group tells Ighodalo

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A pro-democracy group, Initiative for Democratic Advancement and Free Speech, has advised the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) and its candidate in last month’s governorship election in Edo, Asue Ighodalo, to drop litigation against the results of the election.

Candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Monday Okpebholo was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

Executive Director of the organisation, Patrick Osaigbovo, in a statement on Monday said it was unfortunate that the main thrust of the PDP and its candidate, Ighodalo’s case was on the functionality or otherwise of the INEC Results Viewing Portal( iREV).

The statement expressed disappointment over the persistent indictment of the electoral umpire, the INEC, and security agencies by the PDP.

“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 good 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,” he stated.

The Initiative for Democratic Advancement and Free Speech wondered how the PDP expected its candidate to be declared winner of the off-season election when it abandoned campaigns for the APC candidate, Senator Okpebholo whom it noted “started this campaign from units to units, wards to wards, local governments to local governments, the opposition concentrated on media propaganda, sponsoring TV appearances and appealing to diasporan sentiments, as opposed to interfacing with the local people in real-time who would vote on the actual election day.”

“One of them went as far as placing a bet of N5 million on a national TV that the PDP would win the election, as if the lives and well-being of Edo people were a matter of sports betting. That alone showed that the PDP came to gamble with the aspirations of the people,” he stated.

Noting that the PDP went on clearly to usurp the powers of INEC to declare results, the pro-democracy group added that it was unfortunate that the PDP is also relying on the “verdict” of some clearly partisan groups who are masquerading as election observer groups.

Osaigbovo said the so-called observer groups went beyond their bounds of duty by publicly declaring opposition to the results as released by INEC, noting that they were merely to observe the polls and make recommendations to the electoral umpire.

The statement reads in part: “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 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.

“In any case, the PDP is again building castles in the air, with its resort to predicting the substance of its case on the iReV.

“While the results as declared by INEC conform with what is available on the IReV, we must however remind the PDP that it was barely a year ago, in October 2023, that the Supreme Court held that the failure of the INEC to electronically transmit election results via the IReV portal did not affect the collation.

“For emphasis, Justice Inyang Okoro, who led the panel of five Supreme Court justices, delivered the judgment in the appeals brought forth by Peter Obi of the Labour Party (LP) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), contesting the ruling of the Presidential Elections Petitions Court (PEPC), which affirmed Bola Tinubu’s victory in February of that year.

“Justice Okoro, noted that the Electoral Act empowers INEC to determine the mode of transmission of election results and that the appellants failed to prove noncompliance with the Electoral Law but relied solely on INEC’s inability to electronically transmit the election results to the INEC Results Viewing (IReV) portal.

“The apex court consequently declared that the unavailability of election results on the INEC Result Viewing Portal (IReV) could not serve as a basis for the annulment of the presidential election held in February 2023.

“Rather than sponsoring partisan groups claiming to be election observers, the PDP would do well to put its house in order.

“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.”

But in a swift reaction, the Deputy Director-General, Media to the PDP Campaign Council, Reverend Olu Martins, described the stand of the pro-democracy group as baseless and worrisome.

He said the claims can’t be substantiated by those alleging. “The allegations are baseless,” he noted, adding that “they can’t substantiate the claims.

“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.”

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