Nigeria’s former Minister of Aviation, Osita Chidoka, has accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of masterminding the rigging of the Edo State governorship election of Saturday September 21 for the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC).
The former Minister claimed that when invalid votes and manipulations were removed, the People’sPDP’s Governorship Candidate, Asue Ighodalo, in fact won the election, not Monday Okpebholo, who has since been sworn in as Edo Governor.
Making the allegations on Channels Television, Chidoka labeled the election “a sham” and provided data he claims proved widespread manipulation orchestrated at INEC’s highest levels.
Chidoka, former Marshall and CEO of the Federal Road Safety Corps (FRSC) announced his resignation from the opposition PDP, to focus fully on campaigning for electoral reform.
According to Chidoka, shocking discrepancies manifested in the election results.
For example, INEC inflated the number of accredited voters by over 100,000 in 798 polling units, he charged.
“Presiding officers recorded 580,000 accredited voters, yet INEC’s backend magically produced 687,000. This wasn’t an accident; it was deliberate tampering,” he said.
According to him, PDP votes were slashed by 11,665 during collation, while 32,284 votes were illegally added to APC’s tally.
Chidoka said there were inconsistencies between INEC’s certified results and the data uploaded to its Result Viewing Portal (IReV).
“Someone at INEC printed fake result sheets and wrote the outcome they wanted. This isn’t just incompetence; it’s fraud on a massive scale,” he declared. “What happened in Edo wasn’t an election—it was a travesty. If this stands, there’s no point in having elections in 2027.”
Leaving PDP, he said, would enable his activism, without being tied to partisan politics.
“Nothing else is as important to me right now as the defense of our democracy,” he stated.
“The courts must act. INEC has betrayed public trust, and our democracy is on life support,” he said.
