The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State has rejected the outcome of Saturday’s gubernatorial election.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared that the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Godwin Obaseki polled 307,955 votes to defeat 14 other candidates, including his main challenger and APC candidate, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, who got 223,619 votes.
Declaring Obaseki winner, INEC’s Returning Officer for the election, Prof Akpofure Rim-Ruke, said, “I, Akpofure Rim-Ruke, hereby certify, as the returning officer for the Edo State governorship election held on the 19th day of September, 2020, that the election was duly conducted.
“The PDP candidate, having got the 25 per cent in two/thirds of the local government areas in the state and having a margin of lead higher than the cancelled votes, is hereby declared the winner and returned elected.”
Obaseki, who is the incumbent governor, won in 13 local governments out of 18 in the state.
But in a statement titled, ‘APC alleges skewed election, to decide next step,’ and signed by Chairman of APC Media Campaign Council, Mr. John Mayaki, the party alleged strong-arm tactics.
However, the APC called on its members to remain calm.
The party said it felt compelled to reject the results as “our people were arbitrarily arrested, many of the figures were fabricated”.
In the terse statement, the party said that results were tampered with to shore up PDP’s figures.
“Areas where we won, they cancelled them. They decreased the votes in areas we had advantage.
“They rejected our results and jerked up theirs,” the statement further read.
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It said that incumbent Governor and winner of the polls, Godwin Obaseki diverted “attention with false alarm”.
“Obaseki shouted that he was being rigged out and blamed INEC at the initial stage but that was to divert attention from the evil going on in the field,” the APC stated.
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