PDP protesters storm INEC office as APC leads with 48,595 margin in Edo election

Members and supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party have stormed the Head Office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to protest the results of the Edo State governorship election released so far.

The electoral umpire has released results from 16 out of 18 local government areas with the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its candidate, Senator Monday Okpebholo getting the largest share.

Okpebholo has garnered 244,549 votes, leaving his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Asue Ighodalo in second with 195,954 votes while Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party trailed in third place with 13,348 votes.

However, the PDP is aggrieved with the collation process, which it alleged has been compromised by INEC.

To express their grievances, the party's supporters converged at the INEC office, which also doubles as the collation centre in Benin, the state capital, on Sunday, chanting various solidarity songs while some of them were holding leaves during the protest.

They insisted that results announced so far had been tampered with as they vary from what their party agents recorded from the polling units.

One of the protesters, identified as Frank, was quoted to have claimed that the results had been tampered with on the INEC portal.

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Frank called on President Bola Tinubu to intervene and investigate the matter to avoid a crisis in the state.

”What we are saying is that we will not allow anyone to tamper with the wish of the Edo people. People have voted for our candidate (Ighodalo), and some people want to use the power from above to turn the results upside down. We won’t accept it. No, we won’t.

“We have the authentic results with us, and the ones they announced are different. That means someone has tampered with the results. We will not take it.

“We are appealing to President Bola Tinubu to intervene in this matter. Some people should not burn our state,“ he said.

Pulse reported that INEC's Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Faruk Adamu Kuta, has suspended collation till 5 pm Sunday when results from the two remaining local governments will be ready.