Following it’s rejection of the outcome of the governorship election in Edo State as announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has vowed to challenge the result in court.
At a press conference in Abuja, PDP Acting National Chairman Umar Damagum, on Monday called on concerned Nigerians to join the party in rejecting the election results.
Damagum urged the people of Edo to remain resilient and strong, announcing that the PDP would contest the INEC results in court.
“The PDP charges the people of Edo State to remain resolute and undeterred as our Party takes sure and firm steps to retrieve the mandate with every means legal and available in a democracy,” Damagum said some hours after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the candidate of Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) the winner of the keenly contested election.
INEC said the APC candidate secured 291,667 votes, Ighodalo with 247,274 votes and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) with 22,763 votes.
“Several demands by our Party for the redeployment of these officials as well as the release of all arrested PDP members and supporters fell on deaf ears and tend to validate PDP’s suspicion of a top-level conspiracy to rig the Edo State governorship election.
“As Nigerians already know, despite the violence, intimidation and manipulations by the APC, results obtained from the Polling Units show that our candidate, Dr. Asue Ighodalo clearly won the election before the figures were altered at the State collation exercise in favour of the defeated APC candidate.
“The PDP therefore unequivocally rejects the final result of the Edo State Governorship election as declared by INEC as it did not meet the minimum standard for democracy having not reflected the expressed will and aspiration of the people in line with provisions of the Electoral Act, 2022 and INEC Guidelines for State Governorship election.
“The PDP demands that INEC within the time stipulated by Section 65 of the Electoral Act, 2022 review the Edo State governorship election and announce results only as obtained from the genuine votes cast at the Polling Units”, Damagum said.
Credit: Channels TV
