- Opinion Piece
The Edo State APC Chairman, Jaret Tenebe would have us believe that the APC alone magically polled 2,158,600 votes in the July 11, 2026 local government elections across the 18 local government areas of Edo State.
The Edo State Government would have us believe that they won all 18 local government areas of the state at a time when public confidence in the Governor and the Government of the day is arguably at its lowest ebb. At a time when major opposition parties refused to participate. At a time when it was reported by some media houses that there was noticeable low voter turnout.
I double dare the Edo State APC and the State Government to publish the records showing how the APC alone secured 2,158,600 votes in a state where only 2,249,780 people collected their Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) out of the 2,629,025 registered voters in Edo State, according to the 2024 INEC database.
Mind you, since the return to democracy in 1999, Edo State has exceeded one million total votes cast only during the 2003 election cycle, when voter turnout was exceptionally high. Every subsequent governorship and presidential election has recorded significantly lower participation, generally between 550,000 and 700,000 votes cast.
At the 2024 governorship election, of the 2,249,780 people who collected their PVCs, only 583,965 votes were cast across the entire state. In that election, the incumbent Governor, of the APC, polled 291,667 votes, the PDP candidate secured 247,274 votes, while the Labour Party candidate received 22,763 votes.
Please be patient as we trace the election trends since 1999. In 1999, Edo State recorded approximately 827,563 total votes cast.
In 2003, the state recorded about 1.14 million votes cast, the only time in the history of elections jn Edo State that voter records crossed the one million mark. Again, in 2012, about 647,698 votes were cast. Going further, in 2016, the total votes cast stood at 613,244.
Then came covid year 2020. The number of voters further fell to about 550,242. In 2023, with all the drama leading to the Presidential elections that year, the total valid votes in Edo State were just over 500,000.
Then, suddenly, we are expected to believe that a local government election polled 2,158,600 votes for one political party alone? Isn’t this concerning? As much as I would love to argue that this is possible, the stats simply do not support it.
Did voter turnout miraculously jump from barely a quarter of registered voters to almost universal participation overnight? Was the recently constructed flyover at Ramat Park Benin City responsible for this otherwise unexplainable shift in voter attitude?
Did millions of Edo people who routinely stayed away from presidential and governorship elections suddenly troop out in unprecedented numbers for local government elections?
Where are the trends and patterns that support this shift? Where are the statistics?
So, once again, I respectfully challenge the Edo State Government and the Edo State Independent Electoral Commission (EDSIEC) to show us the numbers.
Publish the polling-unit results, the ward-by-ward collation, the accreditation figures, the turnout statistics, and the mathematical basis upon which the APC supposedly polled 2,158,600 votes.
Until those numbers are made available for public scrutiny, this claim remains utterly inconsistent with every electoral pattern Edo State has produced since 1999.
Facts do not lie!
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