The Edo State Authorities and the speedy previous administration are at loggerheads over revelations by former aviation minister, Osita Chidoka relating to the state governorship election on September 21.
Chidoka, throughout a programme on Channels Tv on Friday, criticised the conduct of the election, alleging that it was rigged.
In response, Governor Monday Okpehbolo’s Chief Press Secretary, Fred Itua, in an announcement launched Saturday, mentioned Chidoka’s Athena Centre didn’t cowl substantial elements of the state throughout the election.
He acknowledged additional that representatives of the Athena Centre had been stationed on the Edo State Authorities Home below the supervision of former Governor Godwin Obaseki to control figures.
He mentioned, “On Friday, twenty ninth of November, 2024, Osita Chidoka determined to throw his toys round on behalf of the Peoples’ Democratic Social gathering, as unhealthy losers do. In a well-orchestrated plot hatched by the PDP, in connivance with a serial defector featherweight politician from Anambra State, Osita Chidoka, they tried to bully and blackmail the judiciary into circumventing the need of Edo folks.
The shameful show, which was sadly aired on a once-respected nationwide tv, Channels TV, reeled out numbers bought from ‘Oluwole Market,’ and impetuously concluded that the twenty first September governorship election in Edo State was rigged.
“Sadly, Osita Chidoka’s Athena Centre didn’t cowl the election in substantial elements of the state. They sat in Edo State Authorities Home below the supervision of ex-Governor Godwin Obaseki to concoct and orchestrate figures and numbers to go well with their mindset.
“First, the factional chapter of the Peoples’ Democratic Social gathering in Edo State is blind to the obvious actuality that the social gathering was spurned by Edo folks within the final governorship election due to their weak spot as their very own enemies.
“Overlooking its messy and divided home, the social gathering is searching for non-existent proof to upturn the favored will of the folks on the Tribunal. What precisely is the intention or good thing about orchestrating a media trial, as Mr. Chidoka has completed? It quantities to deliberate ambush.
“Regardless that the PDP and its hatchet man perceive that discussing a problem that’s sub-judicial is fallacious, they’re unremitting of their shambolic plot to supplant info with concoctions, hoping to reach at their premeditated finish.
“This case is already within the tribunal; it ought to be allowed to run its full course with out inhibitions. Fortunately, courts don’t pander to concoctions, prevarication, sentiments, crimson herrings, contradictions, and orchestrations however depend on proof and info.
“We’re hopeful that the judiciary will stay agency within the face of this blackmail, intimidation, and orchestrated media assaults.
“The current try by the PDP and their serial defector, Osita Chidoka, to arm-twist logic and make use of demagoguery to whip up sentiments quantities to the final cry of a bull because the butcher’s knife serrates its chord; and nothing extra.
“We’re conscious that former Governor Godwin Obaseki and a few PDP leaders in Edo State, together with their supporters, held a gathering throughout the week with on-line retailers and editors of main newspapers, the place it was determined that media trial could be their sample to discredit the credible Edo election of twenty first September.
“The reality of the matter is that INEC performed a really free, honest, and violence-free election acknowledged by home observers of their experiences. Even the PDP management in Edo State, in its overview and report, acknowledged that the APC gained the election. The newest drama by Osita Chidoka quantities to merely beating concerning the bush, making an attempt to rake up mud in opposition to the election. The PDP ought to permit the tribunal to do its job in step with established procedures.
“We will see that they’ve recourse to social media, nationwide newspapers, and pliable tv stations to push their ugly narratives that Governor Okpehbolo didn’t win the twenty first September governorship election in Edo State.
“By this, we make them conscious that Governor Monday Okpehbolo is making good progress in workplace because the duly elected governor with an irrevocable mandate for the following 4 years.”
Nevertheless, media aide to Obaseki, Crusoe Osagie, mentioned the revelation clearly threw the Edo State governor and his allies right into a frenzy.
He mentioned, “The unbiased evaluation by the Athena Centre for Coverage and Management, a non-partisan analysis institute, of the sham election that put in Monday Okpehbolo as governor of Edo State clearly threw the governor and his godfathers right into a frenzy.
“Channels TV, of their present, Politics At this time, laid naked the senseless and unprecedented transgressions of the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee and their conspirators, the Edo All Progressives Congress. The present should have been a tough half-hour even for probably the most vile legal.
“Taunted by overwhelming proof and information exposing the systemic rigging and brazen subversion of the folks’s will throughout the September 21 governorship election, the APC, fairly than overlaying their faces in disgrace, resorted to a smear marketing campaign, lies, and propaganda to distract from the daylight theft and undermine the integrity of establishments advocating for the judiciary to proper the fallacious of the electoral umpire and their conspirators.
“The unbiased evaluation broadcast yesterday is the result of a forensic examination of information and paperwork made obtainable to the analysis institute by the Impartial Nationwide Electoral Fee. It revealed widespread manipulation and substantial interference within the electoral course of by the umpire. However the APC, a celebration to the theft, would fairly have the findings dismissed, distorted, or buried below a barrage of propaganda and baseless accusations.
“Amongst different issues, the centre uncovered surprising discrepancies within the election outcomes, exhibiting that INEC inflated the variety of accredited voters by over 100,000 in 798 polling items. Additionally they found that polling officers recorded 580,000 accredited voters, but INEC’s backend mysteriously produced 687,000, additional buttressing proof of deliberate tampering with the election.
“There have been obvious inconsistencies between INEC’s licensed outcomes and the info uploaded to its Consequence Viewing Portal (IReV). Particularly, the forensic evaluation revealed that PDP’s outcomes had been slashed by 11,665 votes throughout collation, whereas 32,284 votes had been illegally added to APC’s tally, demonstrating the brazen manipulation and fraud perpetrated in opposition to the folks of Edo State over the past governorship election.
“Whereas we sympathise with the APC over their trauma from the general public publicity of their electoral fraud in Edo State by the Athena Centre, we restate our resolve to reclaim the mandate duly given by the nice folks of Edo State.
“We belief within the impartiality of the judiciary and are assured they are going to rise above the distractions and intimidation ways of the APC, guaranteeing justice is served and the need of the folks prevails.”