EDO GUBER: Ize-Iyamu files petition at tribunal, wants to be declared winner

Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has finally gone to the Election Petitions Tribunal in Benin to challenge the outcome of the election.

Ize-Iyamu and his party PDP, are asking the court to declare them winner of the September 28 Edo State governorship election, of which the Independent National Electoral Commission, declared the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC), Mr Godwin Obaseki, winner of the poll.

According to INEC, Obaseki secured a total of 319,483 votes as against the 253,173 scored by Ize-Iyamu to emerge winner of the election that saw many citizens of the state take to the streets in protest.

Ize-Iyamu, who was accompanied by the state PDP Chairman, Chief Dan Orbih, filed the petition at about 4:45pm beating the 21-day deadline.

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“We just filed and in the next few days, you will begin to get brief about what is at stake. We are asking the court to declare us as the rightful winner of the election. Edo people know who won the election. We are law-abiding despite the injustice. I thank Edo people for their patience, despite their anger against the results announced by INEC,” Ize-Iyamu said.

Insisting that he has a strong case that will eventually bring to the open all the ‘impunity’ in the election, he added, “Throughout the campaigns, our people kept asking us if we were ready to defend the votes they were going to give to us. We assured them and they came out to vote for us.

“Democracy will not thrive if you allow people to allocate votes. Our case is a strong one and by the time sitting will start, Edo people will be amazed at the impunity to win at all cost.”‎

Speaking along the same line, the state Party chairman Chief Dan Osi Orbih who was at the tribunal with Senator Mathew Uroghide (PDP, Edo south) assured the peace-loving people of Edo state to stay put even as he  expressed his conviction that the tribunal will grant all partys involved fair hearing.

In the petition before the tribunal the PDP is asking that it be declared winner of the Edo state 2016 governorship election because, it scored the highest number of valid lawful votes cast.

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