On Sunday night, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced that Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the Edo State governorship election on Saturday.
Okpebholo defeated his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), to emerge as the winner in the election.
The returning officer for the Edo election, Professor Faruk Adamu Kuta, reported that the APC candidate received a total of 291,667 votes, surpassing PDP’s Ighodalo, who obtained 247,274 votes.
The third major contender in the election, Olumide Akpata from the Labour Party (LP) won 22,763 votes.
Kuta, who serves as the Vice-Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna, indicated that the APC secured the majority of votes in 11 out of the 18 local government areas in the state, while the PDP led in seven.
“That Okpebholo Monday of APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected”, Kuta declared.
Out of a total of 2,249,780 eligible voters, 603,932 were accredited, and 573,965 participated in the voting process, with 13,275 votes being rejected. The acting chairman of the APC in Edo State, Jarrett Tenabe, proclaimed the election to be the most transparent in the state’s history.
“APC is the party that cares for the people. We have the governor that will respect the people; the governor that will work for the good of Edo people,” he said.
