News Investigators/ The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Monday Okpebholo as the winner of the last Saturday governorship election in Edo State.
The INEC’s Returning officer, Farouq Adamu Kuta, who announced the final results said Mr. Okpebholo scored a total of 291,667 as against 247, 655 votes won by the PDP candidate to emerge winner.
The Labour Party’s (LP), Olumide Akpata scored 22761votes to come distant third in the poll.
According to the breakdown of the results collated by INEC from across all 18 Local Government Areas of the state, the APC candidate won the election with 291,647 votes to defeat the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Dr. Asue Ighodalo, who pulled 247,274 votes, Labour Party’s (LP) Barrister Olumide Akpata with 22,763 votes, and 14 other candidates.
The last two results came from Oredo and Ikpoba-Okha LGAs, both in Edo South where the outgoing governor, Mr. Godwin Obaseki, and Akpata hail from. APC won in Oredo scoring 30,780 votes as against 24,938 votes for PDP, and 5,389 votes for LP.
In Ikpoba-Okha, PDP emerged victorious with 26,382 votes as against 16.338 votes, while LP had 4,026 votes.
APC won in 11 LGAs including Akoko-Edo, Egor, Esan Central, Esan West, Etsako Central and Etsako East. Others are: Etsako West, Oredo, Orhionmwon, Owan East and Owan West.
PDP prevailed in the remaining seven LGAs – Esan Northeast, Esan Southeast, Igueben, Ikpoba-Okha, Ovia Northeast, Ovia Southwest and Uhunmwonde.
Mr. Kuta, a professor who made the formal declaration said Mr. Okpebholo has been duly elected governor of Edo State.
However, the PDP has raised concerns about the result, alleging that it did not reflect the wishes of the electorate as expressed in Saturday’s election.