Edo Election: Ighodalo turns down Okpebholo’s friendship offer, to seek redress in court

• The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Okpebholo winner of the September 21 election after he secured 291,667 votes.
• The APC candidate defeated his closest challenger, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 247,274 votes.

Asue Ighodalo, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Edo state governorship poll, says the governor-elect, Monday Okpebholo’s offer of friendship would be impossible while the mandate remains contested.

Ighodalo spoke during an interview with Channels Television on Thursday, adding that reclaim his “stolen mandate” at the tribunal.

“Because the mandate is stolen, there is no way you can accept these hands of fellowship or friendship,” he said.

“I will stay with the people of Edo State who fully gave me the mandate of their free will, and I will go into the courts and the tribunal to reclaim our mandate and then form the government.”

He added that his party did not participate in vote buying.

“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,” he said.

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

“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.