Data Without Authority vs. Authority Without Data: The Repeating Script of APC Primaries in Edo State by Lawson Akhigbe

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Edo State seems to have perfected a unique brand of political theater: the parallel primary declaration. It is a recurring script where the Chairman of the Primary Election Committee announces one winner, the Chief Returning Officer announces another, and the party’s National Working Committee (NWC) is left to pick up the pieces.

We saw this high-stakes drama play out spectacularly during the 2024 gubernatorial primaries. Now, history repeats itself in the Edo South Senatorial APC primary. With the Committee Chairman declaring Hon. Matthew Ogbeide-Ihama the winner and field factions claiming victory for Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu, the battle has once again shifted from the polling booths to the legal chambers of the NWC in Abuja.

To understand how this deadlock will be broken, we must look at the constitutional friction between administrative data and statutory authority—and how the “Monday Okpebholo Playbook” provides the ultimate resolution.

The Constitutional Matrix: Who Actually Holds the Microphone?

Under the APC Constitution and its Electoral Guidelines for Primary Elections, the hierarchy of power is clearly delineated, even if local actors routinely ignore it.

1. The Committee Chairman (The Statutory Authority)

The Chairman of the Primary Election Committee, appointed directly by the National Working Committee, is the Chief Returning Officer for the exercise. They hold the sole legal mandate to validate, sign, and publicly announce the final constituency-wide results. Under Section 84 of the Electoral Act and a mountain of Supreme Court precedents, an election result must be proclaimed by the duly authorized agent designated by the party’s national headquarters. Without the Chairman’s signature, a result is legally dead.

2. The Returning Officer (The Administrative Data)

Conversely, the Returning Officer and local collation officers are administrative subordinates. Their job is field processing, compiling and verifying the raw numbers from the wards and local government areas (LGAs). They possess the raw data (the result sheets), but they do not possess the independent constitutional mandate to bypass the Chairman and declare a winner to the public.

When these two forces clash, it creates a fatal paradox for political parties: Data without authority is a legal nullity, but authority without data is an operational fraud.

The Lessons of the 2024 Okpebholo Precedent

To predict how the NWC will handle Edo South, we must revisit February 2024. During the gubernatorial primaries, Governor Hope Uzodimma (then Chairman of the Election Committee) declared Dennis Idahosa the winner from an official collation center. Simultaneously, the Chief Returning Officer declared Senator Monday Okpebholo the winner from a completely different location.

On paper, Uzodimma’s announcement should have stood. However, the NWC recognized a fatal flaw: the actual field results and ward collation officers had never made it to Uzodimma’s venue. His declaration was procedurally “blind,” making it easy prey for opposition lawyers in a court of law.

Instead of rubber-stamping the Returning Officer’s rogue announcement, which would have violated party hierarchy, the NWC deployed a strategic middle path:

1. The Reset: They declared the primary “inconclusive,” discarding Uzodimma’s declaration without validating the subversion of the Returning Officer.
2. The Replacement: They quietly sidelined Uzodimma and appointed Governor Bassey Otu of Cross River State as the new Committee Chairman.
3. The Marriage of Data and Authority: A rerun/completion exercise was ordered. The field numbers favoring Okpebholo were properly brought to the table, but it was Governor Otu, acting in his strict legal capacity as the new Chairman, who made the official declaration.

Resolving the Edo South Deadlock

The NWC cannot simply accept the Returning Officer’s declaration of Pastor Ize-Iyamu; doing so creates a massive procedural vulnerability that Ogbeide-Ihama’s legal team can easily exploit at the Federal High Court. Conversely, they cannot blindly endorse Ogbeide-Ihama if it is proven that the Chairman manufactured figures without verified field data.
Expect the NWC to dust off the Okpebholo Playbook for Edo South:

• A Declaration of “Inconclusiveness”: Clearing the slate allows the party to avoid calling the original Chairman a liar while simultaneously ignoring the unauthorized declaration by the Returning Officer.
• Appointment of a Neutral Committee: A fresh, neutral panel will be dispatched from Abuja to oversee the collation or a targeted rerun.
• Procedural Alignment: The party will ensure that the real field numbers are captured, but crucially, they will require the new Committee Chairman to sign the final EC8-series forms and make the public announcement.
  In Nigerian party politics, raw numbers mean nothing if they aren’t delivered through the proper constitutional pipeline. For the APC, protecting the eventual candidate’s ticket from post-election judicial termination is the top priority. To do that, Abuja must always ensure that data and authority finally speak with one voice.