By Kemi Kasumu and Busola Samuel
As Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) officials at various local government areas in Edo State began Wednesday night to compile results in the Edo State governorship election which held earlier in the day, the electoral umpire had called on members of the public to disregard social media results until official results were announced. It said on its twitter handle enjoining Nigerians to disregarded results that were on social media saying that it was only INEC or its agents that had the authority to declare results.
As at the time of filing this report (midnight), the INEC had started compiling results after voting and counting of ballot papers at different polling units.
The exercise was said to have been largely peaceful although cases of ballot box snatching were reported at some polling units.
Over 1.9 million people were registered to vote in the poll supervised by over 18,511 officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) WITH 19 candidates contesting from across the parties to succeed the comrade governor, Adams Oshimhole at the election.
The DEFENDER’s investigation revealed that Edo State has 192 registration areas, 2,627 polling units and 4,011 voting points. Earlier, an official of the elector body said polls went on smoothly even as INEC national commissioner, Mrs Amina Zakari said the electoral process was going on as expected and that the INEC officials and security agents were working professionally.
Her words, “It has gone based on our expectation. The ad-hoc staff are working professionally, the security agents are doing their work, the people of Edo State are actually doing what we expect of them. They are behaving adequately, they are lined up neatly and everything is going smoothly,” she said in a press interview while the voting exercise was going on.
However, the governorship candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Osaro Onaiwu called for total cancellation of the poll claiming that there were cases of financial inducement and intimidate of party loyalists.
Although some social media platforms had started to fly online what they claimed to be results of the Edo State governorship election so far, The DEFENDER decided to keep to the standard set by INEC that no results should be regarded until it (INEC) officially announced the results. Updates will be made public as they trickle in.
