Coalition of accredited election observers group exposes malpractices in Edo governorship poll

A Coalition of accredited election observers group which comprise of over One Hundred Civil Society Organisations has expressed disappointment over the malpractices that rocked the Edo State Governorship election on Saturday, stating that the whole exercise fell short of standard and lacked credibility in totality.

The observers were accredited by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, as domestic and international Election Observers to monitor Edo state governorship election that took place on Saturday, 21st September 2024.

In a tense statement by the National Coordinator of the group, Dr. Breakforth Onwubuya which was made available to CAPITAL POST on Monday in Abuja, said, each accredited Civil Society Organisation stormed Edo State with their personnel totaling over 367 and were deployed to all Local Government Councils for the election.

The 18 Local Government Areas monitored are: Akoko-Edo, Egor, Esan Central, Esan North-East, Esan South-East, Esan West, Etsako Central, Etsako East, Etsako West, Igueben, Ikpoba-Okha, Oredo, Orhionmwon, Ovia North-East, Ovia South-West, Owan East, Owan West and Uhunmwonde and expressed disappointment that sensitive electoral materials did not largely arrived in some LGAs.

The statement said: “The coalition has a total of 367 election observers across all the polling units and electoral Wards to observe the conduct of the election.

“The collation observes unbelievable logistics challenges where electoral materials don’t arrive at all, purportedly hacked, while some Wards receive late arrivals, while in some Wards, materials arrive incomplete with shortage of most sensitive materials.

“The coalition observes terrible malpractices and manipulation of results at some LGA collation centers in about 104 polling across twelve (12,) LGAs of Edo State.

“The coalition has on records in cameras, video clips of unbelievable compromise of the electoral process at some Wards, LGAs and the State Collation centre”