I am confident of victory at the tribunal, Ighodalo boasts

Mr. Asue Ighodalo, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate, is confident of winning his case at the Edo State Election Petitions Tribunal.

Ighodalo lost to Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) by a vote margin of 44,393 votes in the keenly contested September 21 governorship election.

While he polled 247,274 votes, Okpebholo garnered 291,667 votes. Olumide Akpata, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), came a distant third with 22, 763 votes.

Speaking on Channels Television’s Politics Today, Ighodalo said the election that produced Okpebholo as governor-elect was not free and fair.

He explained that his legal team has identified over 150 polling units that the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) was not deployed.

“There is a lot of data, information, evidence that we have. We are fully confident that going through the tribunal, we will win the case.

“We will regain our mandate and we are clear without any doubt that we are the winners of the election last Saturday,” he stated.

During the show, the PDP candidate accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and police operatives of subverting the will of Edo people.

According to Ighodalo, Edo people overwhelmingly voted for him and his party in last Saturday’s election.

He alleged without evidence that the APC ruled the election in collaboration with electoral officials.

“We didn’t rig. When APC and INEC saw that APC was losing woefully, they then subverted the electoral laws and the guidelines.

“Collations are done at the polling units and then you go to the ward and then the local government collation centre and then the state. There was a jump, from ward straight to the state,” Ighodalo stated.