Obaseki storms INEC office over delay in collating Edo gov election results

Godwin Obaseki

Edo State Governor Godwin Obaseki on Sunday morning stormed the head office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Edo over the delay in collating results of the governorship election held on Saturday.

Obaseki walked into the office of the resident electoral commissioner (REC) for a meeting that lasted for over an hour.

While the governor was in the REC’s office, some supporters of the All Progressives Congress (APC) protested, saying it was improper for Obaseki to meet with INEC officials during the election.

The protest leader was later allowed to join the meeting held behind closed doors.

Obaseki, who had described the election as a “do-or-die affair”, left the INEC office around 4:45 am but didn’t speak with reporters.

As of the time of filing this report, the result sheets of 4259 polling units had been uploaded on IReV. A total of 4519 polling units is expected to be uploaded.

Later, the attention of the electoral umpire was brought to incorrect figures being entered into result sheets, an incident it said it would investigate.

Meanwhile, the director general of the Asue/Ogie campaign council Matthew Iduoriyekemwen on Sunday morning alongside members of the Peoples Democratic Party, protested the governorship election at the collation centre.

Iduoriyekemwen said the PDP was cruising to victory but information available to them showed that there were plans to juggle the final results that would not reflect the wishes of the voters.

He also alleged that the leader of the APC in the state, Adams Oshiomhole, and the reinstated deputy governor of the state Philip Shaibu were thumb-printing ballot papers to close the gap.

“We have information that the result is being skewed to favour Okpehbolo when it is clear that our candidate is coasting to victory.

“We will not accept this, we will contest it,” he said at about 2:27 am.