APC’s Okpebholo Wins Edo Guber Election
…Voters across 4,519 polling units in the 18 local government areas of Nigeria’s Edo State trooped out on Saturday to elect a new governor to succeed Godwin Obaseki.
Announcing the result on Sunday, the Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Faruq Adamu Kuta, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology (FUT), Minna, revealed that Okpebholo won the election after securing the highest number of votes.
He declared Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election with 291,667 votes, while Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with a total of 247,274 votes. Meanwhile, Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP) polled 22,763 votes to come third in third in the election.
The election, one of the off-cycle polls in 2024, featured 17 candidates, consisting of 16 males and one female.
Before the election result was announced, PDP candidate Asue Ighodalo stated that the election could be the worst in Nigeria’s history, adding that more than 20 polling units across the state were affected by various discrepancies.
Similarly, the governor of the state, Godwin Obaseki, who was escorted out of the INEC premises by the Deputy Inspector General of Police, Frank Mba, in the early hours of Sunday, stated that his visit to the collation centre was to obtain first-hand information about the collation process after unsuccessful attempts to reach the state’s REC officer regarding reports that PDP agents were not allowed into the collation process.
The governor-elect of Edo State
Monday Okpebholo has reacted to his declaration as the winner of the Edo Governorship election by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
In his victory speech, Okpebholo thanked the people of the state for choosing the right person for the job.