•••Senator Abba Moro wins
Attah Ede Makurdi
Governor Samuel Ortom of Benue State has lost his senatorial bid for the Benue North West constituency to a former aide, Titus Zam of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
Returning officer, Prof. Rufus Shaato declared Zam winner of the election at 3:12pm at the INEC zonal office in North bank, Makurdi.
Declaring the result before journalists and party agents, Shaato said that Zam scored a total of 143,151 to emerge winner of the election as against Peoples’ Democratic Party ( Ortom loses senatorial bid to former aide, Zam
Returning officer, Prof. Rufus Shaato declared Zam as winner of the election for Benue North West denatorial district at exactly 3:12pm at INEC office in Makurdi.
Shaato said Zam scored a total of 143,151 to emerge winner as against the Peoples’ Democratic Party’s Samuel Ortom who polled a total of 106, 882 to come second while the candidate of the Labour Party, Mark Gbillah, had a total of 51,950 votes.
Meanwhile, the results from various polling units, ward and local government area collation centres across the senatorial district indicated that the governor lost in 6 out of the 7 local government councils winning in only his Guma local government council.
The senator-elect was Ortom’s Special Adviser on Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs during his first tenure.
Meanwhile, incumbent Senator representing Benue South senatorial district Senator Abba Patrick Moro defeated Comrade Daniel Onjeh of the All Progressive Congress (APC) and Hon Joseph Ojobo of Labour Party (LP) to retain his seat.
Announcing the results at the INEC Collation Centre in Otukpo, the INEC Chief Returning Officer for Benue South Senatorial election Prof Robert Tee said that Senator Moro scored 76,459 votes to beat his closest rival and candidate of the APC, Comrade Daniel Onjeh who scored 59,938 votes.
Hon Joseph Ojobo of Labour Party scored 40,194 votes to come 3rd.
