The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday declared Governor Yahaya Bello of Kogi state of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the governorship election.
The Returning Officer for the election, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University (ABU) Zaria, Prof. Ibrahim Umar, made the declaration at the INEC office in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital.
While Bello scored a total of 406,222 votes, his opponent, Mr Musa Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 189,704 votes, with the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Natasha Akpoti, also scoring a total of 9,482 votes.
Announcing the final results of the election, the returning officer said a total of 1,646,350 people registered for the election while 636,202 were accredited to vote.
He explained that the margin between the winner of the election and the runner-up was 216,518 votes.
Similarly, for the National Assembly, NASS, election, Senator Dino Melaye of the PDP lost to APC’s Senator Smart Adeyemi.
Senator Adeyemi who scored 80,118 votes as against the 59,548 votes garnered by Senator Melaye, the election was declared inconclusive.
The returning officer for the election, Professor Olayinde Lawal, explained that the margin of 20,570 votes between both candidates was lower than the 43,127 registered voters in 53 polling units of 20 registration areas in the zone where elections were cancelled.
He informed party agents and others present at the collation centre that he was constrained by the law to declare a winner in such a situation.
