Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Chukwuma Soludo of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) winner of the November 6 governorship election in Anambra State.

Soludo polled a total of 112,229 votes to defeat his closest rival, Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 53,807 to emerge second.

Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate got a total of 43,285 votes to emerge in the third position.

Ifeanyi Ubah of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) came fourth with 21,261 votes. Ubah also won in one local government, same as Ozigbo, with Soludo winning in the remaining 19 local governments.

The Returning Officer for 2021 Anambra governorship election, Florence Obi, announced this in the early hours of Wednesday at INEC headquarters, Awka.

INEC suspended collation of results late Sunday night and declared the exercise inconclusive following non-conduct of election in Ihiala Local Government Area.

The commission, however, fixed Tuesday November 9 for supplementary election in Ihiala.

Announcing the final result, Obi noted that after adding up the results collated from Ihiala, Soludo continued his lead in the election.

Supplementary election in Ihiala

Soludo was already leading other candidates by a wide margin when INEC suspended the collation of election results in the early hours of Monday and announced that election must be held in Ihiala Local Government Area on Tuesday as required by law – The margin between Soludo and his closest rival, Ozigbo was 52,624 votes, whereas there are 148,361 registered voters in Ihiala, according to INEC.

At the end of Tuesday’s election in Ihiala, Soludo scored 8,283 votes to defeat Ozigbo who had 2,485 votes. APC scored 343 votes and YPP 344.

The accredited voters for the election in Ihiala was 12,299 out of the 148,361 registered voters.

She said that Soludo won in 19 of the 21 local government areas of the state.

Obi listed the areas where Soludo won to include; Dunukofia, Awka South, Oyi, Anaocha, Ayamelum, Anambra East, Idemili South and Onitsha South.

She also stated that the APGA candidate also won in Njikoka, Orumba South, Onitsha North, Idemili North, Ekwusigo, Aguata, and Nnewi South, Orumba North and Ihiala Local Government Areas.

The PDP candidate won in Ogbaru with 3,445 votes, APGA scored second while APC came third in the same council.

Ifeanyi Ubah of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) won in his home local government, Nnewi North, in spite of coming a distant fourth in the overall score card with 21,261 votes.

The returning officer, who is the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, said: “Chukwuma Soludo having scored the highest number of valid votes was declared winner of the election.”

Obi said that total number of valid votes was 241,523, while 8,108 were void.

The returning officer had earlier stated that Anambra with a total number of 2,466,638 registered voters only had a total of 253,388 accredited voters for the election which began on November 6 and was extended to November 9, 2021.

Soludo is expected to be sworn in, in March 2022, when the tenure of the outgoing governor, Willie Obiano, expires. Obiano and Soludo are members of the same party, APGA.

PT