POLITICS
Guber Polls: APC, Wins Imo, Kogi, INEC Continues Bayelsa Collation Today
By Marcel Duru, Owerri, Joseph Amedu, Lokoja and Mike Tayese, Yenagoa
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has held the first off-cycle polls since the 2023 general elections on Sunday with Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi State as residents elected for their governors.
INEC has declared the Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma of APC winner, defeating Samuel Anyanwu of the PDP, Labour Party (LP)’s Nneji Achonu, and 15 other opponents.
Uzodimma polled 540, 308 votes to defeat his closest rivals, PDP’s Anyanwu, who scored 71,503 votes and LP’s Achonu who got 64,081.
Ododo polled 446, 237 votes to defeat Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who came second with 259,052 votes.
Dino Melaye, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 46,362 votes.A total of 46,084 regular and ad hoc staff were deployed in the three states, according to the electoral body.
At least 126 national and international organisations were accredited with 11,000 observers deployed for the elections, while 80 media organisations applied to deploy 1,203 personnel, including journalists and technical/support staff.
All 18 political parties contested in Kogi, while Imo and Bayelsa have 17 and 16 candidates, respectively. The parties deployed 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents for the election.
To ensure a secure environment for electoral conduct, the police mobilised a total of 92,565 personnel, including 27,000 in Bayelsa, 25,565 in Imo, and 40,000 in Kogi, and several assets such as five helicopters and 15 gunboats.
The Federal Road Safety Corps also deployed 1,500 operatives and 105 vehicles.
According to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the elections would be held in 10,470 polling units across 649 electoral wards in 56 local government areas.
Channels Television will keep you up to speed with all the latest information. Refresh this page for more updates.
Final vote counts for the Kogi State governorship election as at 10:09 pm on Sunday: total registered voters: 1,932,474; accredited voters: 794,500; votes polled by each party are as follows:
A – 1,254; AA – 1,440; AAC – 424; ADC – 259,052; ADP – 1064; APC – 446,237; APGA – 469; APM – 130; APP – 1,135; BP – 82; LP – 567; NNPP – 136; NRM – 242; PDP – 46,362; PRP – 781; SDP – 259,052; YPP – 868; ZLP – 227.
The total valid votes: 782,289; rejected votes: 9,601; total votes cast: 791,890.
In Kogi State, the INEC’s returning officer, Prof. Johnson Urame, said that the candidate of the APC got 446,237 votes.
The governorship candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Alh. Muritala Yakubu Ajaka, who came second in the exercise, polled a total votes of SDP 259, 052 while the candidate of People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Dino Melaye, came third with the total number 46, 362 votes.
Prof. Johnson said “Ahmed Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress having satisfied the mandate of the law is declared the winner of Kogi state governorship election and returned elected”.
However, the electoral umpire also announced that fresh polls will be conducted in 59 polling units in the Ogori/Magongo LGA of Kogi State next Saturday, November 18.
In Bayelsa State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Sunday night, adjourned the collation of results in Bayelsa State till Monday (today) noon.
PDP’s Diri has won five of the eight local government areas in the state with APC’s Sylva clinching a local government.
Results from six of the eight local government areas in the state namely Kolokuma/Opokuma, Ogbia, Yenegoa, Sagbama, Nembe and Ekeremor have been collated. The remaining local government areas are Brass and Southern Ijaw.
Prof Faruq Kuta, who is the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University Of Technology, Minna, and the state Returning Officer for the election in Bayelsa adjourned the exercise on Sunday night.
Sixteen political parties sponsored candidates for the election in Bayelsa.
Diri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s main opponent, Timipre Sylva, is a former Minister of State For Petroleum Resources and an ex-governor of the state.
Sylva, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the poll, was first Bayelsa governor from May 2007 to April 2008 and later between May 2008 and January 2012.
Earlier on Sunday, the incumbent governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodimma has congratulated the people of Imo State for given him the opportunity to serve them for the second term, saying his victory in November 11, 2023 governorship election was watershed in the political history of Imo State, and vowed to eliminate insecurity.
“The margin of victory and the unanimous endorsement across the state, has united the state for one common cause, this is the first time since the creation of the Imo State, the entire people has spoken with one voice to validate the excellent performance of my administration
He called on the opposition parties to accept his victory in good faith and see his overwhelming reelection as a further challenge to produce best for the people of the State.
Uzodimma however congratulated the opponents in the election for a spirited fight and urged them to save the state from any further tensions by joining hands with to build the Imo of our dreams.
He gave assurance of mapping another strategy to end insecurity in Imo State, adding that by the special grace of God the second administration will be better than the last one.
Meanwhile, the candidate of the PDP in Kogi State, Senator Dino Melaye has asked the electoral umpire to cancel the election in the state.
Melaye spoke at a press conference on Sunday in Lokoja, the state’s capital.
He alleged that result sheets manifested even before the commencement of the accreditation of voters on Saturday.
“Yesterday in the five local governments of the central senatorial district in Kogi state, there was no election. In the end, surprisingly, accreditation was done manually, the BVAS was not used,” Melaye said.
“Prepared sheets manifested even before accreditation and evidence is all over the media.
“INEC as a matter of urgency must cancel the election. Many areas where I won, my agents were told there were no available result sheets to enter the result and we have evidence to back up these claims.
“As I speak to you, it is shameful that this is what our democracy has descended to. INEC has manifested ever more than before, that they cannot be trusted, they are biased, they are compromised, and they cannot be a neutral umpire.
“INEC officials, youth corps members were caught yesterday with prepared result sheets even before the commencement of the processes. A youth corps member was arrested with a prepared result and N1 million.”
The Social Democratic Party (SDP) has also called for the cancellation of the election in the central senatorial district of Kogi.
David Edibo, an agent of the SDP, in a petition addressed to the INEC returning officer at the collation center in Lokoja on Sunday, said the party did not accept the results of the election in five LGAs of the state.
INEC had on Saturday said it was investigating reports of pre-filled result sheets in some polling units in the state.
“Our attention has been drawn to a report that filled result sheets were discovered in some polling units in Kogi State. The Commission views this situation seriously,” the commission said in a statement posted on X.
The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of the commission and guard against the culture of manipulating election results.
The Abia Chairman of the association, Mr Collins Eze, gave the advice at the group’s general meeting and end-of-year party in Umuahia.
Speaking in an interview with newsmen on the sideline of the ceremony, Eze said that the staff members were adequately aware of their enormous responsibility and should ensure free, fair and credible elections.
He said: “We have also told our colleagues that anywhere they find themselves they should make sure that they do the needful by ensuring transparency in the conduct of elections.
“We have always told them not to allow anybody to induce them with money to manipulate election results.
“I’m happy that they have been building the capacity of our colleagues on election processes.
“So, in the coming years, we won’t have any problem in ensuring free, fair and peaceful elections.”
He said that the end-of-year party was special as it afforded them the opportunity “to wine and dine together as well as thank God for sustaining them in 2024”.
Eze said that his leadership had introduced various means of assisting members in dire financial needs by providing platforms to solicit suppory for them.
He expressed gratitude to members for their support and cooperation, describing them as the “secret behind the success of this administration”.
He said that 34 of at least 350 staff members of the commission in the state retired from service in 2024.
According to him, the development has placed a huge financial burden on the association, in terms of their welfare and entitlement as members.
Report says that each member received a carton of tomato paste as Christmas gift from the association. (NAN)
A chieftain of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Osita Okechukwu, has told the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to be thankful to God that its 16-year administration was not probed by the successive APC-led governments.Okechukwu stated this on Tuesday in Abuja, while reacting to a statement by PDP congratulating Ghanaians for the conduct of free, fair and transparent general elections.
Report says that PDP had, in a statement, said that the verdict of the people of Ghana in the presidential election was a signal to the APC that its days were numbered. The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Debo Ologunagba, had said in the statement that the power of the people in Nigeria, just like in Ghana, would ‘surely prevail and end the APC’s oppressive rule’.This, he said, would “return Nigeria to the path of good governance, security, political stability and economic prosperity on the platform of the PDP in 2027.”However, in his reactions to Ologunagba’s statement, Okechukwu said that the PDP clan should thank God that former President Muhammadu Buhari and President Bola Tinubu, out of sheer statesmanship, had refused to probe ‘the 16 locus years of PDP administrations’.Okechukwu, a former Director-General of Voice of Nigeria (VON), described the 16 years of PDP administrations as ones full of squandering and lack of plan.He said that Nigeria had yet to recover from the humongous culture of impunity and trust deficit planted by PDP on the Nigerian soil.Okechukwu said corruption was among the culture of impunity, saying it governed the privatisation of Nigeria’s electricity value chain, a key element in the country’s industrialisation drive.“Another is the blatant rigging of the 2007 general elections which the foremost beneficiary, President Umaru Yar’Adua, out of good conscience and noble magnanimity, publicly acknowledged the malfeasance which characterised his victory,” he said.Okechukwu also mentioned what he called conscienceless sale of the legislative and ministerial quarters, the annual rentage of which, he said, was bleeding the country’s treasury.“Another one is the neglect of $23 billion Greenfield Refinery, which could have saved over $70 billion expended on importation of refined petroleum products and which simulated the economic hardship of today,” he said.On why, for nine years, the APC administration could not fix those challenges, he recalled the efforts made by the Buhari administration to reopen talks on the Greenfield Refinery which, according to him, the Chinese regrettably rebuffed.The former VON director-general said that Nigerians were not in a hurry to forget the deliberate breach of the rotational convention of president from the north to the south.He said that the country could not also forget the utter disregard for Section 7 of the PDP’s constitution which expressly mandated zoning.Okechukwu advised the PDP not to insult the sensibilities of Nigerians by assuming that citizens would easily forget how they were put in the harms way.He said that PDP should thank God that Buhari and Tinubu did not want to probe them, adding “that’s why Nigerians cannot decipher the difference between the two political parties.” (NAN)
Sen. Ned Nwoko (PDP-Delta) says that Local Government Administration is central to democracy in Nigeria as it ensures grassroots governance and service delivery at the local level.This is contained in a statement signed by Dr Michael Nwoko, the Chief of Staff to the lawmaker in Abuja on Monday.Nwoko said this on the occasion of the presentation of an award “Icon of Hope” to him by the Association of Local Government Vice Chairmen of Nigeria (ALGOVC).
He was represented by his Chief of Staff. He said that the importance of local government administration in the country could not be overemphasised, as it was the bedrock of democracy.According to him, local governments in Nigeria play key roles in the country’s democracy by promoting participatory democracy, providing services, and representing citizens.“Local Governments help determine local needs and how to meet them. They also act as a link between the centre, state, and local people.“They are created to decentralise power and bring the government closer to the people. They perform both mandatory and concurrent functions.“It is in view of this that I took it upon myself to enhance the viability of local governments through the Paris and London club loan refunds,”he said.Dr Folashade Olabanji-Oba, ALGOVC National Chairman, while presenting the award at its 7th Annual National Conference, said the award was in recognition of the lawmaker’s significant contributions to strengthening local government administration.She highlighted Nwoko’s critical role in ensuring the Paris and London Club loan refunds, a financial breakthrough she said enhanced the capacity of local governments nationwide.(NAN)
Yuletide: Bode George Urges Tinubu to Reduce Petrol Price
ShareChief Bode George, a former Deputy National Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), has urged President Bola Tinubu to...
Tinubu Set for Groundbreaking of Renewed Hope City in Lagos
Share President Bola Tinubu, is set to perform the groundbreaking of 2,000 housing units of the Renewed Hope City in...
Gov. Alia Presents N550.1bn as 2025 Budget Estimate to Benue Assembly
ShareGov. Hyacinth Alia on Wednesday presented the sum of N550.1bn as the 2025 appropriation bill to the Benue State House...
Tax Bills: NASS will not Betray the Trust of Nigerians, says Akpabio
Share The President of the Senate, Sen. Godswill Akpabio, says the National Assembly will prioritise the interest of all Nigerians...
Alia Has Demonstrated Capacity, Courage to Entrench Good Governance—Speaker
Share The Speaker, Benue Assembly, Mr Hyacinth Dajo, has said that Gov. Hyacinth Alia has so far demonstrated capacity, courage,...
Investors Gain N183bn on NGX
Share The Nigerian Exchange Ltd. (NGX) continued its bullish trend on Wednesday, gaining N183 billion. Accordingly, the market capitalisation, which...
Energy, Solid Minerals Top Priority, Tinubu Tells German Businessmen
Share President Bola Tinubu, on Wednesday, assured the German government and businessmen of Nigeria’s preparedness to expand frontiers for investors...
Nigerian Who Wrote WASSCE 17 Times Bags Distinction from London School
Share Dr Emmanuel Ahmadu, a Nigerian who wrote the West Africa School Senior Certificate Education 17 times, has earned a...
INEC Staff Welfare Association Warns Members Against Manipulating Election Results
Share The Abia Chapter of the INEC Staff Welfare Association (ISWA) has warned its members to uphold the integrity of...
Bill for Compulsory Counselling, Training of Convicts Scales 2nd Reading
ShareA bill to amend the Corrupt Practices and Other Related Offences Act, 2000, has successfully passed its second reading in...