The Anambra State Governorship poll gets more intriguing today as a supplementary election is held in the South-East state’s Ihiala Local Government Area to choose the future governor of the state.
Anambra has 21 local government areas and elections were held over the weekend in 20 of them.
Prof Florence Obi, INEC’s Chief Returning Officer for the election stated that the Commission was unable to deploy electoral officials to Ihiala due to the unpredictable security situation in the region.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar later declared the governorship election inconclusive and announced that a supplemental election will be held today, November 9, in 362 voting units in Ihiala LGA.
Recall that Charles Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance(APGA) was proclaimed winner in 18 of the 20 declared local governments; Ifeanyi Ubah, candidate of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) won in one; and Valentine Ozigbo, candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won in the other. Senator Andy Uba, the All Progressives Congress’s (APC) gubernatorial candidate had yet to win any LGA.
According to Victor Aluko, the Independent National Electoral Commission’s Director of Voter Education and Publicity, Ihiala has 148,407 registered voters.
Aluko, speaking on a television show on Monday, stated that while the APGA candidate, Soludo, won 18 of the 20 LGAs where elections were held, he cannot yet be proclaimed the victor since the total votes in Ihiala exceeded the margin of votes obtained by the ex-Central Bank of Nigeria governor.
He continued “The candidate of the APGA and the PDP currently have a 52,624-vote advantage. The APGA candidate received 103,146 votes, and the PDP candidate received 51,322 votes. The lead margin is 52,624 percent. Ihiala has 148,407 votes in total”.
The margin of victory is narrower than the number of votes cast in Ihiala. So, to be fair, we need to finish that election Ihiala before we can move on,” he remarked.
In a discussion with Newsmen today (Tuesday) an APGA leader, Uche Nworah, expressed confidence that Soludo would win, noting that while there are 148,407 voters in Ihiala, only approximately 40,000 had voters’ cards.
