The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in collusion with the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) have bypassed all electoral procedures contained in the Electoral Act in the collation of the Edo 2024 governorship election.
In a statement, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said that the umpire and the police are acting out a script from the All Progressives Congress (APC), who is perfecting a rigging plan to upturn their imminent defeat in the polls.
The State Chairman, Dr. Anthony Aziegbemi, noted that the collation process is likely to have been compromised to favour the APC, noting that nocturnal meetings are being held between the leadership of the APC in the State to perfect their rigging plan so as to salvage the situation.
“We are alarmed at the extent the APC is going to stir a crisis with the conduct of the election. They have now bypassed the local government collation process in Edo South. All the materials are now being moved directly to the State Secretariat. We believe this is a huge red flag.
“What is more perplexing is that they are restricting our agents from gaining entrance to the State Collation Centre where they have moved the results to. The grand plan is to perfect how the numbers will be layered and then cook up numbers to announce tomorrow.”
He noted that restricting the party agents from the collation centre spells a bad omen, noting, “INEC and Police are conspiring to manipulate the polls. It is clear that whatever rigging the APC has done on the field has failed them. They are now cleaning up the books at the last minute of the collation. We learn that the APC is trying to pressure INEC to announce the results in the wee hours of the morning, which is when they would have manipulated the results and claimed victory when we know they have lost this election.”