Obiano wins Anambra governorship election

The candidate of the All Progressives
Grand Alliance, Mr. Willie Obiano, has
been declared the winner in the
Anambra State governorship election.
Obiano scored 180,178 to beat the
Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Mr.
Tony Nwoye, to the second position
with 97,700 votes and Senator Chris
Ngige of the All Progressives Congress,
who came third with 95,963.
The Labour Party candidate, Mr. Ifeanyi
Ubah, came fourth with 37,495.
The formal declaration was made by the
Chief Returning Officer, Prof. James
Epoke, who is also the Vice-Chancellor of
the University of Calabar around 1 am
on Sunday.
The declaration of the winner brought to
an end a long-running and controversial
process of electing a new governor for
Anambra State.
The entire process of electing the new
governor was dogged by controversy as
three of the major political parties that
fielded candidates called for its
cancellation and vowed to boycott the
supplementary election.
The Chairman of the Independent
National Electoral Commission, Prof.
Attahiru Jega, who admitted the errors
committed in the election, apologised to
the nation but said the errors were not
substantial enough to warrant the
cancellation of the entire exercise.
The supplementary election was
eventually held on Saturday but was
characterised by low turnout. The
Agbaja Polling Unit 22 in Abatete,
Idemili North Local Government Area,
which has a voting population of 739,
for instance, had only 24 candidates
accredited and 20 of them voting in the
supplementary election.
The main election, which held on
November 16, could not be concluded
on the same day and INEC announced
that election in 65 polling units in Obosi
ward in Idemili North Local Government
Area would be repeated.
The Chief Returning Officer said the
voting population in the areas where
election did not take place was large
enough to make the second or third
person defeat the leading candidate.
He, therefore, declared the election
inconclusive.
Following the development, INEC
declared that supplementary election
would in 210 polling units, where
113,113 voters could not vote on
November 16. The areas affected cut
across 15 local government areas and
most of them (160)were in Idemili
North.
Epoke said the Electoral Act required
that for a winner to be declared in an
election, the difference in the total
voting population of the areas where
election was cancelled should be less
than the difference between the votes
scored by the candidate with the
highest votes and the votes of the
candidate with the second highest
votes.
The returning officer had reported that
the total voting population in the areas
where election was cancelled was
113,113, which was higher than the
79,754 difference between the leading
candidate’s votes and the second
highest candidate’s votes, saying the
commission had no choice but to
declare the election inconclusive.
“The rule guiding this election is that for
a winner to emerge, he must have
majority of votes cast and the required
spread of 25 per cent of votes in two
thirds of the local government areas.
“We observed that due to many
reasons, there were a lot of cancelled
votes that made it difficult for a winner
to emerge,” Epoke said.
He said the winner of the election would
be declared only after election has been
conducted in areas where the election
was cancelled.
In declaring Obiano winner, Epoke said
the APGA candidate did not only win
the majority of the votes cast, but also
fulfilled the requirement that the
winner should score 25 per cent of the
total votes cast in two thirds of the local
governments in the state, in Anambra’s
case 14 local government areas.
Meanwhile, the Independent National
Electoral Commission Resident
Commissioner in Rivers State, Mr Aniedi
Ikoiwak, has commended the people of
Anambra for coming out to vote in
Saturday’s supplementary governorship
election.
The electoral commissioner, who
supervised the election in Onitsha South
and Onitsha North council areas, spoke
at Okija hall, where voting took place in
four polling units.
“The important thing here is that for so
many places where I have visited, the
party agents were there, especially
those of the major parties.
“It is a clear indication that there had
not been any boycott of the election by
any of the parties.
“The people were interested in
completing this exercise so that at the
end of the day, their governor would be
announced to them,’’ he said.
Ikoiwak said NEC directed its poll
officers to display the Form 60E on the
day of the exercise, which would show
that the election had been completed
peacefully.
“You cannot display that form if you do
not have a conducive environment.
“And that form would display the result
in each unit for members of the public
to copy and know what happened in the
unit,’’ he said.