Nigeria Content Online

The People’s
Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and incumbent governor, Theodore
Ahamefula Orji, was yesterday declared the winner of the Abia
governorship election. The PDP also won all 24 seats in the state House
of Assembly.

Mr Orji emerged as
the winner having polled 641,158 votes to beat 19 other contestants.
Reagan Ufomber of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) came a
distant second with 49,421 votes and Chris Akomas of the PPA got 43,778
votes.

The chief
returning officer for the state and vice chancellor of the
Umudike-based Michael Okpara University of Agriculture, Hilary Edoga,
said he had certified the results collated in the various local
governments and that Mr Orji won the elections conducted on Tuesday.

The result, which
showed that none of the opposition candidates won 25 percent of the
votes cast, even in their home constituencies, was rejected by the
oppositions’ agents who refused to sign, saying there was no election
in the state.

The deputy
director of campaigns for the ACN, Eke Igwe, said the election was a
sham. He said the PDP collaborated with security operatives to chase
away voters and carried away ballot papers to thumbprint them in their
private houses before bringing them to the units.

The chairman of
the APGA in Isiala Ngwa North, Godwin Ibendiogwu said that in some
units in Nbawsi, the party’s agents were beaten up and the materials
carried away. He described the whole exercise as a sham.

Reacting to Mr
Orji’s victory, the state commissioner for information and strategy,
A.C.B. Agbazuere said the Abia electorate has, by voting overwhelmingly
for the governor, demonstrated their gratitude to him for bringing them
out of bondage and delivering democracy dividends to the people.

In the rescheduled national assembly election in Isiala Ngwa north
and south federal constituencies, Chinenye Ike of the PDP was also
declared winner.