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.”