BENIN CITY—Mr. Godwin Obaseki of the
All Progressives Congress, APC, yesterday, emerged governor-elect of Edo State
upon his declaration as the candidate with the highest number of votes in the
governorship election held Wednesday. Obaseki polled 51.3% of the total votes
cast in the election, according to the results declared yesterday. He was
trailed by Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who polled
40% of the votes cast, according to the Independent National Electoral
Commission, INEC. Obaseki Obaseki The declaration was immediately challenged by
the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, which accused officials of INEC of
conspiring with APC and Edo State government officials to rewrite results
gathered at the polling centres. The returning officer for the election, Prof.
Kayode Soremekun, who is Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti
State, declared Obaseki winner with 319,483 votes to the 253,173 votes credited
to the PDP candidate, Ize-Iyamu. The APC candidate was also credited with
majority of the votes in 13 of the 18 local government areas of the state,
leaving the PDP candidate with majority votes in five LGAs. None of the other
17 political parties that participated in the election won a majority in any of
the local governments. The declaration of Obaseki as the winner was immediately
welcomed by the outgoing governor, Comrade Adams Oshiomhole, and the victor
(Obaseki). It’s good for democracy — Buhari President Muhammadu Buhari,
yesterday, congratulated the government and people of Edo State for a peaceful
conclusion of the election. In a telephone call to Governor Oshiohmole
yesterday, the President noted with delight the victory of the All Progressives
Congress, APC, candidate, Godwin Obaseki. He commended the well articulated
campaign programme of the APC in the state, the doggedness of the governor,
governor-elect and party members in going round the state to reach the people
with records of good governance. He said: “The victory is good for democracy,
for Nigeria and for the people of Edo.” He applauded INEC, security agencies,
corps members and the electorate in ensuring peaceful election in the state.
Welcoming his declaration, Obaseki lauded the salutary roles played by
President Buhari; his campaign manager, Osarodion Ogie; his wife Betsy Obaseki,
even as he gave very special appreciation to the Governor Oshiomhole. We’ll
fulfil campaign promises — Obaseki He promised to press ahead with his campaign
promises saying: “By your votes, you clearly affirmed your faith in my ability
to lead our state into a new era. This is a responsibility Philip Shaibu, my
running mate, and myself do not take lightly. Our promise to build a state
anchored on a productive economy that will transform and empower our citizens
is sincere. “We promised jobs. We promised empowerment of our citizens. We
promised improved social welfare services and a more secured state. We will
strive to deliver on all of these promises. As we travelled all over our great
state selling our programmes, we also took note of your concerns and problems,
and I want to assure you that we will do everything in our power to address
them. “Let me, at this point, sincerely salute the courage of all those, who
came out to exercise their franchise in spite of the intimidating manoeuvres of
merchants of violence to derail the conduct of a peaceful, free and fair
election; you are the heroes of this election! You saw through their propaganda
and lies, and you made the right decision.” We’ve retired PDP chieftains —
Oshiomhole Welcoming the outcome of the election, Oshiomhole said he had now
permanently retired some PDP chieftains from active politics. Speaking after a
road show round the state capital, the governor said: “They said they would
disgrace Oshiomhole in this election because they were plotting evil during the
elections, but God thwarted all their plans, and I told our people these people
wanted to kill us because of election, but they will never succeed. And I want
to thank security agents, who worked so hard to ensure that those evil people
were apprehended. “Just look at the result of the election, Igbinedion lost his
ward, Ikimi was defeated in Igueben, and that is because these people have lost
touch with the people. “We had a rerun in 2012 with all the godfathers on one
side and new forces of change on my side. I won in all the 18 local government
areas. Our people have spoken loud and clear that they believe in democracy,
they just don’t want to be beneficiaries, they want to be the drivers of the
process. This was shown by the way they conducted themselves on election day.
“There is something unique in the way things have turned out. In Esan land, the
senatorial zone of the PDP godfather, we won two out of the five local
governments. We gave him a fight that he managed to escape. He used the factor
of his age to play on the emotion of the people. It is a victory for the people
of the state.” Drama, intrigues accusations The declaration of results at the
INEC collation centre was, however, characterised by much intrigue and drama
starting from the night of the election, when declaration of results was
suspended at about 1.30 a.m., yesterday. The PDP immediately cried wolf,
alleging that the suspension of the declaration was part of the plot by the APC
and its collaborators in INEC and security agencies to cook fake result sheets.
The party, through its spokesman in the state, Chris Enehikare, had declared
that based on results from the polling units, the PDP candidate was having a
comfortable lead across the state and warned that efforts to subvert the
results would be stiffly resisted. Meanwhile about the same time, the APC
running mate, Philip Shuaibu led a group of APC partisans to the INEC collation
centre in Etsako West Local Government area over disputes arising from
collation in the area. The collation officer for the area alleged that Shuaibu
pulled a gun at him to force his imprint on the result. Shuaibu, however,
disputed the account, saying he was shocked by the report of the local
government area collation officer. “The same collation officer that went on air
lying that I was harassing him with a gun is the same man who promised that the
matter will be sorted out in Benin. So, we left the collation center with that
mindset that we were leaving for Benin to take decision on the matter because
the duty of the collation officer in that ward was to collate what is given to
him and not to cancel and there was no element of violence in my unit that will
result in the issue of cancellation of any result,” Shuaibu said in defence of
the allegations against him. KOWA governorship candidate, Mr. Osadolor
Kingsley, also joined the fray as he called for cancellation of the election,
citing irregularities in the election process. He alleged that the voters were
financially induced in most of the wards and units across the 18 local
government areas of the state which made them vote against their will.
Ize-Iyamu rejects results Rejecting the result at a press conference,
yesterday, Ize-Iyamu, who expressed amazement at the way it turned out said the
results did not reflect the figures collated at the polling centres and the
wards. “First, we are in total amazement at the details of the results released
by INEC because all of them are fake and not the figures announced at various
units and as collated at various wards across the state. The fake results
announced by INEC are entirely a fabrication which did not reflect the true
picture of what transpired during the election.” “However, we are not totally
surprised because long before now, we had anticipated this and had also warned
INEC, security agencies and alerted Edo people at various press conferences and
statements, on this situation.” “Secondly, based on the results emanating from
across the state, PDP won the election fair and square, and with a very
comfortable margin. So it is with disgust that we have been receiving fake
results which were never recorded in either the units or the ward collations centres.
Justifying the decision to reject the results, he said: “We know that a fair
turnout of voters was recorded state-wide because the weather was very clement
and voters were enthusiastic. However, unknown to unsuspecting Edo electorate,
INEC had long provided the serial numbers of all result sheets to Adams
Oshiomole and his APC government, to print fresh result sheets “This is not a
mere allegation. From the benefit of hindsight, the 18 day period of
postponement of the election was to provide enough time for the Governor and
his government to print these result sheets and perfect the writing of fake
results at the units and at all levels of collation. This scenario is further
buttressed by the fact that on Monday, September 26th, 2016, when election materials
arrived from the CBN at INEC state office for inspection, agents of the
political parties including the APC and PDP were given pre-typed copies of the
serial numbers of all result sheets and the ballot papers. This was a clear
security breach and an infringement on the credibility of the process, as these
are sensitive materials, which should not have been sighted even by INEC
officers. “Everything that has transpired had been carefully designed by the
Adams Oshiomole led Edo State government and their cohorts in INEC. They
perfected a scheme to void thousands of ballot papers, to enable them to
perpetrate their devices. It is widely recorded that over 88% of the voided
ballots were PDP votes. He also cited several cases of the disruption of
collation in some areas, including the case of Oredo where he said police,
INEC, Department of State Services, DSS and other security operatives watched
akimbo as thugs came and packed result sheets. Describing it as a travesty of
justice, Ize-Iyamu also noted the open inducement of voters with sums of N2,000
to N5,000 saying that the state authorities poured out at between N4 billion
and N5 billion to bribe voters. Official Result of Edo Gov Poll LG A APC PDP
Reg. Voters Accredited Voters
Akoko Edo 24,545 13,027 110,118 39,945
Ovia South West 12,820 8,810 79,964
24,061
Ikpoba Okha 33,469 26,096 260,965
55,348
Etsako West 29,199 10,843 136,664 45,620
Etsako East 18,078 12,552 66,277 33,032
Etsako Central 10,373 8,827 43,049
20,145
Esan Central 9,781 10,180 50,603 21,400
Owan East 21,233 12,889 76,455 36,271
Owan West 12,862 10,1232 54,406 24,487
Oredo 37,612 30,492 73,712 69,401
Egor 26,177 19,514 184,296 49,802
Igueben 7,802 7,560 42,655 16,482
Uhunmwode 10,911 8,667 62,987 21,927
Esan North East 9,130 16,220 74,293 27,121
Esan South East 9,554 11,466 66,698
22,522
Orhionmwon 15,262 16,446 102,921 34,270
Esan West 13,114 16,311 87,867 31,866
Ovia North East 17,561 13,141 126,391 33,664
Total
319,483 253,173 1,900,223 622,039
