Johnson Babajide – Makurdi
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the governorship candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Benue, Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia winner of last Saturday’s election.
Declaring the results, the returning officer, Professor Faruk Kuta, Vice Chancellor Federal University of Technology Minna announced the governorship candidate of APC, Rev Father Hyacinth Alia winner of the governorship election.
Professor Kuta declared that APC candidate polled. 473,933 votes to defeat the candidate of PDP, Titus Uba who scored 223,914 votes while the governorship candidate of Labour Party, Hemma Hembe polled 41,841 votes to come third distant.
The APC governorship candidate won in 17 LGAs, PDP won in four LGAa and Labour Party won in one LGA.
It will be recalled that governorship election did not hold last Saturday in Kwande local government area due to print errors in ballot papers meant for the council.
The returning officer said that the commission relied on section 24 sub-section 1 of the electoral act and INEC guidelines to declare the winner of the election.
Meanwhile, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Professor Sam Egwu had earlier said that when the margin of lead is more than registered voters in the local government, the commission would declare winner of the election.
Our correspondent gathered that Kwande LGA, with 15 Registration Areas has registered voters of 172,294.
The margin of lead, however, stands at 250,020 votes.
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