The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Governor Hope Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the November 11, 2023, governorship election in Imo State.
The state Returning Officer, Prof Abayomi Fashina, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University, Oye Ekiti, made the official announcement on Sunday morning around 10 am.
After an extensive collation process spanning over eight hours to compile results from various local government areas, Prof Fashina declared Uzodimma re-elected, stating, “That you Hope Uzodimma of APC having satisfied the law is hereby returned elected.”
Governor Uzodimma, 64, sought re-election in the Saturday poll and managed to secure victory across all 27 local government areas in the state.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate convincingly defeated his rivals, including Samuel Anyanwu of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Nneji Achonu of the Labour Party (LP), and Jack Ogunewe of the Action Alliance (AA), along with 14 other opponents.
The final results revealed that Uzodimma obtained 540,308 votes, leaving his closest competitors trailing. PDP’s Samuel Anyanwu secured 71,503 votes, while LP’s Nneji Achonu garnered 64,081 votes.
Despite the victory, the collation process was not without controversy. Opposition party agents raised objections, claiming discrepancies between the results presented at the state collation center and those uploaded on the Result Viewing Portal of the commission.
Labour Party agents and others demanded the suspension of collation, but the returning officer insisted on concluding the process.
According to INEC, a total of 2,419,922 voters were registered for the poll in Imo State, with 2,318,919 Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collected.
