Situation Room: Collation of Edo guber poll results not transparent, lacks credibility

The Nigeria Civil Society Situation Room, which monitored Saturday’s governorship election in Edo state, has faulted the collation of results.

On Sunday, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Monday Okpebholo, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of the election.

Okpebholo polled 291,667 votes to defeat his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the PDP, who got 247,274 votes.

Akpata came a distant third with 22,763 votes.

Speaking at a press conference in Abuja on Monday, Mimidoo Achakpa, the co-convener of the Situation Room, said the provisions of the Electoral Act and guidelines of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on the collation process were compromised in the election.

She noted that the collation process was not transparent, adding that it was not open to representatives of the various candidates in the election.

“In addition, it lacks transparency in the application of the provision of the Electoral Act and the INEC Guidelines on over-voting and cancellation of results from polling units,” Achakpa said.

“This raised a major question on the lack of clarity and uniformity in the application of the rule on cancellation of ballots across different LGAs.

“Indeed, the report of many collation venues operating in darkness is also questionable.”

Achakpa said reports of Situation Room member organisations revealed contradictions between the final results declared and what were declared at the polling unit level in some LGAs.

She said the occurrence was particularly observed in Egor, Ikpoba Okha, Oredo, Esan West, and Ovia south-west LGAs.

“There were several reports of over-voting as revealed by findings from the various observation hubs, including the CDD-West Africa’s Election Analysis Centre (CDD-EAC),” she said.

“Over-voting was reported from more than 370 polling units across the 18 LGAs of the state by our observers.

“It is our observation that the Edo State Governorship election 2024 failed to fulfil the requirement of the conduct of credible elections and again raises questions about election credibility in Nigeria.

“As with recent elections, INEC’s ability and willingness to conduct credible elections in Nigeria remains questionable.”

Achakpa asked INEC to investigate polling officials and collation officers involved in the violations of the guidelines on results collation.

She added that the commission should clarify the inconsistencies in some of the results from the LGAs identified in the observation reports.

The Situation Room co-convener said security agencies should also provide an update on the number of arrests made during the election and release information on the disciplinary steps taken against operatives who enabled any form of election malpractice or manipulation.