THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said it had received complaints of alleged tempering with result sheets of the Edo State governorship poll in some polling units.

The commission vowed to investigate the matter.

The electoral umpire made the vow in a statement posted on its official X account on Saturday, September 21.

It said, “The commission’s attention has been drawn to an allegation of wrong figures entered into polling unit result sheets in the ongoing Edo State governorship election.

“This is the second complaint we have received out of the 4,519 polling units used for the election. The commission will immediately investigate the matter and deal with any proven infraction.”

The Edo State governorship election was held on Saturday, September 21, as voters went to the polls to vote for their preferred candidates.

Seventeen political parties competed for votes in the poll, with three candidates – PDP’s Asue Ighodalo, APC’s Monday Okpebholo, and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) – leading the race.

There are approximately 2.63 million registered voters but only 2.25 million of these collected their permanent voter’s card (PVC), making them eligible to vote, according to data from INEC.

The ICIR reported how officers of the Nigeria Police Force (NPF) arrested political thugs on the eve of the election, and operatives of the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission (EFCC) arrested vote buyers during the poll.

As of the time of filing this report, the electoral umpire has yet to start announcing the results.

However, a check on the INEC’s IReV portal shows that 4,435 results have been submitted out of 4,519 expected total results, representing 98.14 per cent as of 2:17:03am on Sunday, September 22.

In an interview with Channels Television on Saturday night,  the INEC resident electoral commissioner in Edo state, Anugbum Onuoha, said the commission had not started receiving results from any of the local government areas.

At the time, he noted that the election results were being collated at the ward level and had yet to reach the LGAs, where the results would be compiled and sent to the state collation centre.

However, in a statement he issued after the interview, he said the collation would begin at the INEC state headquarters in Benin City, the Edo State capital, at 10 am on Sunday.