Edo State’s governorship election

Thousands of prospective voters from of Edo State’s eighteen local government areas thronged polling stations on Wednesday last week, October 28. They exercised their franchise and elected Chief Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the state’s new governor. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate Pastor Ize-Iyamu came second in the election in which […]

Thousands of prospective voters from of Edo State’s eighteen local government areas thronged polling stations on Wednesday last week, October 28. They exercised their franchise and elected Chief Godwin Obaseki of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the state’s new governor. Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s candidate Pastor Ize-Iyamu came second in the election in which 19 political parties fielded candidates.
Returning Officer for the poll and Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, Prof. Kayode Soremekun said Obaseki got 319,483 votes, a little over 50 percent of the total votes cast. Obaseki got 253,172 votes. Edo has 1,900,223 registered voters; ý622,669 were accredited for the election while 613,244 voted.
A lot of scepticism trailed the Edo election especially when the police and the DSS asked for its extension from September 10, citing planned attacks by terrorists. The build-up to the election was full of blame games, acrimony, suspicion and suspense. Despite that setback, INEC was able to conduct the election in a relatively peaceful atmosphere within the rescheduled period by mobilizing 18,500 electoral officials.
Twenty five thousand policemen and 15,000 civil defence agents also provided election security.
Unlike what happened in Rivers and Kogi states, Edo’s election was conclusive. Also, for the first time since the introduction of the card reader last year, INEC conducted simultaneous accreditation and voting in Edo, which enabled the poll to be concluded by 2.30pm and final result was released within 24 hours. This is really commendable.
In his acceptance speech, Governor-elect Godwin Obaseki described the people of Edo as “the heroes of the election.” He said, “The elections are over; it is time to bury the hatchet and close ranks for the good of our dear state. Our state is superior to all other interests and we must, as individuals, subordinate our personal ambitions to that of the collective.”
President Buhari described Obaseki’s victory as good for democracy, for Nigeria and for the people of Edo State.
However, even before final result was announced, PDP rejected it at a press conference. Its state Chairman Dan Orbih said the figures were “fabricated and pre-determined” by INEC and Edo Government. He said, “If you go by the results that were announced at the polling units and wards across the state, PDP would have won by over 30,000 votes. What INEC is announcing is clearly different from what we got from our agents and independent observers in the 192 wards and over 2,000 units across the state.”
PDP’s candidate Ize-Iyamu said the results declared by INEC were problematic. He said, “For example, the so-called winner of the election was credited with less than 320,000 votes while I, who INEC declared as loser, was credited with less than 300,000 votes. This is not true. The result exposed the fraud orchestrated by INEC. We still have many options. We can go to the elections tribunal, call a world press conference to let the world know what transpired or leave everything to God.”
Ize-Iyamu deserves praise for dissuading his supporters from taking the law into their hands. The Electoral Act (2010) as amended gives aggrieved contestants the right to pursue their cases at the election tribunals and other courts.  International observers who monitored the Edo election also expressed reservations about its conduct, saying they were denied entry into the central collation centre. Head of the African Union Observer Team Prof Ahmed Ansari said security operatives at the polling units looked the other way while politicians and their agents induced voters with money. He therefore asked INEC to improve on the functionality of the card readers, saying the machines did not function in some polling units.
He said his report and that of American, British Council and other observers from the Netherlands and Scotland would be submitted to INEC and other election stakeholders. We await the reports of these observers in order to gain a better insight into what really happened in the Edo election.