An All Progressives Congress, (APC), governorship aspirant in Edo State, Dennis Idahosa, has described the result of the Thursday primary as fictitious.Senator Monday Okpebholo was declared the winner of the election.
Cross River State Governor, Senator Bassey Otu, who was the Chairman of Edo APC’s fresh poll, made the declaration after collating the results from the 18 local government areas’ returning officers that conducted the poll in the 192 wards of the state.
Okpebholo polled 12,433 votes to defeat Idahosa, a representative of Ovia constituency in the House of Representatives, who scored 6,541 votes.
The former Chairman of the Electoral Committee of the primary, Governor Hope Uzodimma of Imo State, had announced Idahosa as the winner, while returning officer, Stanley Ugboaja declared Monday Okpebholo as winner.
Also, Ojo Babatunde, who claimed to be representing the returning officers in all the local government declared Anamero Dekeri as the winner of the election.
This led to the National Working Committee of the party ordering a fresh election on Thursday.
In a post on his official Facebook page, Idahosa expressed appreciation to his supporters for maintaining peace in the face of provocation.
He said, “My dear esteemed supporters and party faithful, let me first of all appreciate all party faithful across Edo State for your massive and unwavering support towards my governorship ambition of becoming our party’s flag bearer in the 2024 Edo governorship election.
“I will never take this show of love and confidence for granted going forward.
“The declaration of fictitious primary election results by the Sen. Bassey Otu’s Committee represents the highest level of rape on democracy ever witnessed in Edo State.
“Events in the last few days may have been very disappointing and demoralising to lots of people as your votes seemed not to have counted going by the process and declaration of fictitious primary election results of what happened on the field on the 22nd of February re-run elections in the 192 wards of the state.
“Let me assure you all, our teaming supporters that, I shall explore all the party internal mechanisms to resolve the issues, and seeks justice and where that doesn’t work, I shall communicate with you all on our next line of action.“Please continue to maintain peace in the face provocation,” he added.
Meanwhile, Anamero Dekeri was the first aspirant to reject the outcome of the primary on Friday
Dekeri, a member of the House of Representatives, representing the Etsako Federal Constituency, scored 2,566 votes in the shadow election.
Shortly after Otu declared Okpebholo winner, Dekeri rejected the results and vowed to challenge it at the appeal panel.
He alleged that the conduct of the primaries lacked transparency and was skewed in favour of Okpebholo.
