By Lucky Isibor
The Edo State chapter of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) has alleged differences between results uploaded from the BVAS machines into the INEC portal is different from what is contained in result sheets which were eventually collated at the state collation centre and called on the umpire to do the verification of its claims before the final declaration of results.
Addressing a press conference in Benin City Sunday afternoon, the Edo State chairman of the PDP, Hon. Tony Aziegbemi pointed out that while the collated results from INEC portal for Akoko Edo Local Government Area shows that the APC scored 25,010 votes, the Local Government Returning entered 34,847 adding that while the PDP scored 18,620 as shown by results on INEC portal, 15,865 was entered into the result sheet.
In a petition to the Chairman of INEC, a copy of which was made available to newsmen at the press conference stated that: “It has come to our attention that the Electoral Officers appointed by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) for the conduct of the Edo State Governorship election, made entries that are totally different from the actual results as uploaded on the INEC IREV, thereby unjustly inflating votes in favour of the APC and deducting the votes of the PDP.
“For specifics please find below the following; A. AKOKO EDO LGA
A simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 25,010 votes while 34,847 votes was recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is
18,620 but 15,865 was returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“It would interest you that In Ward 9 Akoko Edo LGA, from the 36 Polling Unit results uploaded on the IREV, the total votes obtained by APC is 2,350 while 9104 was entered into the EC8B result for APC. The total votes for PDP is 1359 while 633 was entered in the EC8B.
“Also, in Ward 6 Akoko Edo LGA, were elections did not hold in Ward 6 Units
12, 17, 15, 18, 14 and 16, results were returned for the said polling units in the Ward Result sheet (EC8B).
“B. EGORLGA
” A simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded on the IREV shows that the APC obtained 10,972 votes while 16,760 votes was recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV \s 14,485 but 14,658 was returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“It would interest you to note that the collation of the Egor LGA was not done at the designated LGA centre but was moved to the INEC State HQ and the PDP agent was not allowed access to be part of the exercise.
“Cc. ETSAKO WEST LGA A simple collation of all the votes recorded in the polling unit results uploaded
“On the IREV shows that the APC obtained 29,858 votes while 32,107 votes was recorded in the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer. While for the PDP, a collation of the votes from the results uploaded on the IREV is 16,712 but 17,483 was returned on the EC8C declared by the LGA Returning Officer.
“The above highlighted irregularities which are very apparent are extremely scandalous and a brazen attempt to steal the mandate of the PDP and also a
terrible embarrassment to the commission.
“We therefore demand the immediate re-collation and re computation of the actual results for the various polling units in the above highlighted Local Government Areas in compliance with the INEC guidelines and regulations which mandates that vote from various units and wards be properly collated”.