Abia State has a new governor in the person of Alex Otti, the candidate of the Labour Party (LP), who emerged victorious in the governorship election held on March 18.
Otti was declared winner by the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, Prof Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri.
According to the results announced by the Returning Officer, Otti scored 175,467 votes to trounce his opponents, Okey Ahiwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 88,529 votes, and Enyinnaya Nwafor of the Young Peoples Party (YPP) who got 28,972 votes. The LP candidate also won 10 of the 17 local government areas in the state, while PDP got six and YPP got one.
The election was not without its challenges as INEC had to suspend the exercise for over 48 hours in the South-East state due to reported cases of violence and ballot-box snatching.
However, the final collation of results eventually resumed in Umuahia, the state capital, leading to the eventual declaration of Otti as the winner of the election.
