April 01, (THEWILL) – The Edo State Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, sitting in Abuja, has scheduled Wednesday, April 2, 2025, to deliver its judgment on the petition filed by Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) challenging the victory of Governor Monday Okpebholo in the September 21, 2024, gubernatorial election.
A three-member panel, led by Justice Wilfred Kpochi, reserved judgment on March 3 after parties in the suit concluded their final arguments.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had on September 22 declared Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) winner of the election with 291,667 votes, defeating Ighodalo, who polled 247,274 votes, and Labour Party’s Olumide Akpata, who garnered 22,763 votes.
Dissatisfied with the outcome, the PDP and its candidate approached the tribunal, alleging widespread irregularities, including over-voting, ballot serialisation issues, errors in collation, and miscalculations in results.
In the suit marked EPT/ED/GOV/02/2024, Ighodalo presented a senior technical officer from INEC’s ICT department as a witness, who tendered 154 BVAS machines as evidence to substantiate claims of overvoting.
Adopting his final address, Ighodalo further alleged that results from 765 polling units were manipulated at the collation centers and that errors in computation affected the final outcome.
He urged the tribunal to nullify the Certificate of Return issued to Okpebholo and declare him the rightful winner of the election.
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