Nyesom Wike, a two-term governor of Rivers state, has made multiple claims during a recent media chat with journalists, where he was asked to react to the post-election controversies in the state.
Wike, a chieftain of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), said the party was only being vigilant after winning the March 18 gubernatorial election, to avoid some of the issues which he said ensued following the outcome of the 2019 election in the state.
He also blamed the suspended national chairman of the PDP, Iyorchia Ayu, for the party’s loss in the 2023 presidential election.
Claim I: Iyorchia Ayu failed to deliver his polling unit, ward, LGA, and state for PDP in the 2023 general elections.
Verification
The CDD Election War Room checked to verify Wike’s claim and found that Ayu won his polling unit for Atiku Abubakar, the presidential candidate of the PDP.
A report by Daily Trust, detailing how major party stakeholders fared at their respective polling units in the 2023 polls, revealed that PDP won in Ayu’s polling unit.
The election result at Mkovour Market PU 10 in Ipav District, Gboko Local Government Area of Benue state, where Ayu voted, showed that the PDP won the majority of the votes cast.
In the presidential election, Atiku scored 190 votes, leaving APC and LP with seven and four votes, respectively.
For the senatorial election, PDP had 192 votes while APC and LP polled five votes each. PDP polled 196 in the House of Representatives, leaving APC with 9 votes and LP 1.
The Nigerian Tribune also reported the development here.
We checked the Independent National Electoral Commission’s result viewing portal, IRev, to confirm if PDP lost in Ayu’s ward, Igyorov, in the presidential election.
We found that only results for 16 out of the 22 polling units in Igyorov Ward were updated. We, however, observed that the ward result sheet, containing results for 20 PUs, was uploaded, with two PUs missing.
The results available on IRev showed that PDP had 1,520 votes ahead of APC and LP which polled 1,443 and 179 respectively.
We however cannot confirm that PDP won in Igyorov Ward as we could not get the breakdown of results for the last two polling units. However, the results available show a slim PDP lead.
At the local government level, Gboko LGA election results showed that the APC won with 35,149 votes, followed by LP with 18,615 votes. PDP had 13,901 votes.
At the state level, the election results for Benue state, as announced by INEC, showed that APC won with 310,468 votes over LP’s 308,372 votes and PDP’s 130,081 votes.
Verdict: MOSTLY TRUE
CDD Election War Room found that PDP won in Ayu’s PU, but lost at the LGA and state levels. As for the ward, we could only get results for 20 of the 22 polling units in Igyorov Ward, which showed that PDP was in the lead with a slight vote margin ahead of APC and LP.
Claim II: APC adopted AAC in the 2019 gubernatorial election in Rivers state.
Verification:
Checks by the CDD Election War Room show that the All Progressives Congress (APC) had no governorship candidate in the 2019 Rivers gubernatorial election.
This was as a federal high court in Port Harcourt, nullified the parallel primaries conducted by the two different factions of the party in the state, ahead of the 2019 elections.
The court further stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from allowing any of the candidates to be on the ballots.
Following the development, Rotimi Amaechi, a leader of the APC in the state and a former governor, reportedly announced the resolution of the party to support Awara Biokpomabo, who was the candidate of the African Action Congress (AAC) in the March 9 election.
Verdict: TRUE
A faction of the APC led by Rotimi Amaechi, the former governor of Rivers state, adopted the candidate of the AAC in the state’s guber polls in 2019 following a court ruling which restrained the party from fielding a candidate over the internal crisis in the party.
Leave a Reply