The Peoples Democratic Party on Monday said
that it would challenge the outcome of the Edo
State governorship election at the election
petitions tribunal.
The Independent National Electoral Commission
had last Thursday declared the candidate of the
All Progressives Congress, Godwin Obaseki, as the
winner of the election.
According to the electoral umpire, Obaseki had a
total of 319,483 votes while his counterpart in the
PDP, Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, polled 253,173 votes to
come second.

The opposition had rejected the result, which it
described as a fraud, and accused INEC of alleged
complicity.
But the Edo State PDP Chairman, Chief Dan Orbih,
who disclosed this in a chat with The PUNCH in
Benin, the Edo State capital, explained that the party
would leave nothing to chance to prove that the
result was manipulated and that it would also expose
the alleged corruption and incompetence of the
electoral commission.

He, therefore, called for the dissolution of the
present leadership of the INEC.
Orbih said, “Of course, we are going to file our
petition at the election petitions tribunal. We will give
it our all. If nothing else, to expose to Nigerians how
corrupt and incompetent INEC is, under its present
leadership.
“Our lawyers are busy; they are working. Until they
formally file a petition, all I can say is that we are
going to challenge the result of this election at the
tribunal.”
While stressing the role of the judiciary in upholding
the tenet of democracy, he expressed confidence in
its ability to give justice to Nigerians.
“We will pursue this matter to a logical conclusion
and I believe that the judiciary has a role to play to
save democracy and give Nigerians hope that, in a
country where people do things with impunity,
people can still approach the judiciary for justice,” he
added.
On whether the party was convinced that the
outcome of the tribunal would not end in favour of
the candidate returned elected by the INEC, as was
the case in Bayelsa and Kogi states, Orbih noted that
the PDP would give the tribunal the benefit of the
doubt.
He said, “What happened in Kogi is not what has
happened in Edo. What happened in Bayelsa is not
what has happened in Edo.
“We must give that benefit of doubt, rather than
resort to self-help or take the law into our hands. We
want to test this obvious fraudulent manipulation of
INEC, in collaboration with the state government, in
the election result in the judiciary.”

PunchNg