The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Reverend Father Hyacinth Alia, has been declared winner of the Benue State governorship election.
According to results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Alia scored the highest votes to beat his closest rival, the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP) Engr. Titus Uba, who is the incumbent speaker of Benue assembly.
Alia led in the race with a margin of 251,020 votes.
Returning Officer for Governorship Election in Benue, Prof. Adamu Farouk Kuta, who is Vice Chancellor of Federal University of Technology, Minna, announced that Alia polled a total of 473,933 to lead Uba who had 223,913 while Labour Party’s Heman Hembe trailed with 41,881 votes.
Our correspondent reports that results collated from all the 23 LGAs of the state indicated that the APC’s Alia won majority of the votes in 17 LGAs.
Uba however won in four LGAs while the LP won one local government area and other parties did not win in any of the LGAs of the state.
The results from 22 out of the 23 LGAs in the state were announced, leaving out Kwande LGA where elections did not hold as a result of printing error discovered on the ballot sheets.
Earlier, Prof. Adamu Farouk Kuta, the state returning officer explained that the setback could not affect the declaration of the entire results of the election as the margin of the winning party far exceeded the registered voters in Kwande LGA.
“We are relying on Electoral act, Section 24 sub 1 and Electoral guideline of INEC,” Kuta said as he declared Alia of the APC winner at exactly 5:47pm on Monday.
The final scores announced:
APC: 473,933
LP: 41,881
NNPP:1,187
PDP:223,913
Total valid votes:756,903
Rejected votes: 11,499
Total votes cast:768,402
