APC wins governorship seats in Lagos, Kwara, Gombe, PDP in Ebonyi, Abia, Oyo states

Results of the governorship and state houses of assembly elections held throughout Nigeria on March 10 have begun to trickle in with the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declaring the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate in Lagos State, Mr. Babajide Sanwo-Olu as winner of the exercise.

Sanwo-Olu polled a total of 739,445 votes out of a total of 977,476 votes.
The candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Olujimi Agbaje polled 206,141 votes.

INEC’s returning officer, Prof. Eyitayo Ogunbodede announced that 21,239 votes were rejected Sanwo-Olu is now expected to succeed Akinwunmi Ambode as the governor of the state on May 29.

Ambode did not win the primary.
Meanwhile, Sanwo-Olu said that he received a call from Agbaje, congratulating him on winning the election.

“At exactly 19.07, I received a congratulatory call from Mr. Jimi Agbaje which was filled with kind words. It was an intense campaign and I am happy that we can now focus on the very important job at hand, which is delivering the Lagos that works.

“I am grateful to the national and state leadership of my party for their support and I deeply appreciate our members and the voters who put their confidence in me. This victory is for all of you.
“There were things that were said that should not have been said but I bear no grudges against anyone. Those who tried to use ethnicity to divide us did not succeed. The election is over and I implore them to stop. This is the time to build a better Lagos,” he said.

The party also made a clean sweep of all the 40 legislative seats the state house of assembly.

In Gombe State, INEC declared Alhaji Inuwa Yahaya of the APC as the governor-elect.
The INEC returning officer for the state, Prof. Saminu Abdulrahaman, who declared the result in Gombe on Sunday, said Yahaya scored 364,179 votes to defeat Mr. Usman Nafada of the PDP who polled 222,868 votes and was returned elected.

In Kwara State showed, INEC announced that Mr. Abdulrahman Abdulrazaq of the APC won the governorship election.
He polled 331,546 votes to emerge as the winner to defeat his PDP counterpart, Mr. Abdulrazaq Atunwa, who polled 114,754 votes to emerge as the first runner-up.
From the official results declared in all the 16 local government areas in the state, Abdulrazaq led Atunwa with a margin of 216,792 votes.

Notably, the APC beat the PDP in all the local government areas.
In Abia State, the incumbent governor, Mr. Okezie Ikpeazu won the governorship election even as the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and the APC rejected the results.

Abia State governorship election returning officer and vice chancellor of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka (UNN), Prof. Benjamin Ozumba declared Ikpeazu of as the winner of Saturday’s election.
He announced that Ikpeazu scored 261,127 votes to beat his APC opponent, Dr Uche Ogah who scored 99,574 and APGA’s Dr Alex Otti 64,366 to second and third positions respectively.
He said while Ikpeazu won in 11 local government areas, Ogah won in four and Otti in two.

In their reactions, Ogah and Otti addressed a joint press conference rejecting the outcome of the election.
They accused INEC of disregarding the card readers rule.

They said that the results released by INEC were highly tweaked to favour the PDP adding “even where some of us in the opposition had warned, INEC connived with security Agencies to change the results in favour of the PDP”
According to them, they were surprised that INEC re-appointed Ozumba who so acted in 2015 as the returning officer despite according, to them, he (Ozumba) as the 2015 returning officer in the state “created the problems we had in 2015 when he reversed himself by accepting results he had earlier cancelled when he came under pressure and influence of PDP both in the state and at the Federal level.”

And in Ebonyi State, Governor David Umahi of the PDP was declared the winner of the governorship election and vice chancellor of the Federal University of Technology Owerri, Prof. Chukwuemeka Eze, said Umahi garnered 393,343 votes across the 13 local government areas of the state.
His closest challenger, Mr. Sonni Ogbuoji of the APC got 81703 votes, while the candidate of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), Mr. Chibueze Agbo, placed third with just 10129 votes.

“I hereby certify that I Prof Chukwuemeka Eze was the Returning Officer of the governorship election held on 9th math 2019 in Ebonyi state.
“That David Umahi Nweze of the PDP having satisfied the requirements of the law and having scored the highest number of votes is hereby returned and elected,” he said.

In Oyo State, the candidate of the PDP, Mr. Seyi Makinde, is on course to win the governorship election.
Although he has not been officially declared as winner, and with one local government, Ibadan South West, still awaited, Premium Times reports that the PDP candidate had won 27 out of the 32 local government areas declared so far.

Makinde so far received a total of 481,177 votes from the local government declared while the APC candidate, Mr. Bayo Adelabu, received 331,799 votes.