Governor Lucky Aiyedatiwa of the All Progressive Congress APC has been declared winner of the last Saturday November 16, 2024 governorship poll in Ondo State , returning to the Government House in Alagbaka, Akure, after a landslide victory
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)Returning Officer for the election and Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University, Lokoja, Kogi State, Prof.Olayemi Akinwumi, who announced the results at exactly 2:30 pm at the INEC collation centre in Akure, the State capital on Sunday , said that the incumbent governor polled 366,781 votes to defeat his closest rival and a former deputy governor of the state, Agboola Ajayi of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 117,845 votes, far below half of the total votes recorded for the APC candidate.
"That Lucky Orimisan Aiyedatiwa of the APC having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” the returning officer declared
The declaration came hours after the collation of results for the election began in the early hours of Sunday. Although the collation centre went on breaks, the APC took a commanding lead with over 200,000 votes ahead of the PDP.
The final results showed that the APC won the election in a landslide, clearing all 18 local government areas
With the declaration by INEC, Aiyedatiwa, a former deputy governor who ascended to power on 27th December , 2023 after Governor Rotimi Akeredolu’s death. will be piloting the affairs of the oil-rich state for the next four years
Governor Aiyedatiwa had during his campaign signed into law, a minimum wage of N73,000 for workers on the payroll of the State Government higher than N70,000 national minimum wage, describing the signing as a pointer to his administration commitment to the welfare of the workforce in the state
But the Campaign organization of Agboola, who was also a former deputy to the Late Akereledolu, described the signing as a gimmick to woo votes of the workers
The PDP candidate who is suffering from the most embarrassing defeat in his political career since he stated contesting for the top seat in 2020, accused INEC of compromising the election process.
He accused the electoral body of deliberating slowing the process – a ploy to rig the poll.
“The system is compromised and I have had a series of calls today. People are complaining about vote buying and the BVAS is not working,” he said on Saturday after voting.
“It is a very shameful exercise and I think Nigerians should just call on the chairman of the electoral commission Prof Mahmood Yakubu. If you cannot do the job, please just honourably resign", he demanded
Also observers strongly believed that the exercise was married by open vote-buying across the state, without the security operatives checkmating those involved in the unethical practice
”Though the election went on smoothly, observers believe it was marred by vote-buying across the state. They said the trend went on “openly and unchecked”.
“Situation Room notes the trend of persistent vote trading during elections in Nigeria,” the Situation Room said in its assessment of the poll.
“This situation has continued unabatedly, and heightened in this election. It is worrying that, despite the high presence of security personnel at the polling units, vote trading went on openly and unchecked during the voting hours.”, they stated
The below are breakdown of the results as declared by INEC
PDP 2692
PDP 7814
Total Votes according to Inec;
No comments:
Post a Comment