By Ishaya Ibrahim
The candidate of the Labour Party in the March 18 governorship election, Alex Otti, has been declared the winner of the contest.
Announcing the result of the poll, INEC Returning Officer for Abia State, Professor Nnenna Oti, announced that the Labour Party’s Alex Otti, polled 175,467 votes to beat his closest challenger, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Okechukwu Ahiwe, who polled 88,529 votes.
The All Progressives Congress candidate in the election, Ikechi Emenike, polled 24,091 votes, followed by Greg Ibe of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), who scored 18,119 votes.
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INEC had suspended the collation of the results for Abia due to a protest over the result from Obingwa local government.
It was alleged that the ruling PDP in the state was seeking to inflate its result in Obingwa to compensate for its about 93,00 deficit.
Obingwa has 157,390 registered voters, but only 27, 664 were accredited for the election.
The Labour Party polled 3, 776 votes in Obingwa as against the PDP’s 9,962 votes.
With the result, the PDP has for the first time since 1999, lost control of Abia State.
