Obiano wins Anambra governorship election
DECEMBER 1, 2013 BY EMMANUEL OBE
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Mr. Willie Obiano
The candidate of the All Progressives Grand
Alliance, Mr. Willie Obiano, has been declared
the winner in the Anambra State governorship
election.
Obiano scored 180,178 to beat the Peoples
Democratic Party candidate, Mr. Tony Nwoye,
to the second position with 97,700 votes and
Senator Chris Ngige of the All Progressives
Congress, who came third with 95,963.
The Labour Party candidate, Mr. Ifeanyi Ubah,
came fourth with 37,495.
The formal declaration was made by the Chief
Returning Officer, Prof. James Epoke, who is
also the Vice-Chancellor of the University of
Calabar around 1 am on Sunday.
The declaration of the winner brought to an
end a long-running and controversial process
of electing a new governor for Anambra State.
The entire process of electing the new
governor was dogged by controversy as three
of the major political parties that fielded
candidates called for its cancellation and
vowed to boycott the supplementary election.
The Chairman of the Independent National
Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, who
admitted the errors committed in the election,
apologised to the nation but said the errors
were not substantial enough to warrant the
cancellation of the entire exercise.
The supplementary election was eventually held
on Saturday but was characterised by low
turnout. The Agbaja Polling Unit 22 in Abatete,
Idemili North Local Government Area, which
has a voting population of 739, for instance,
had only 24 candidates accredited and 20 of
them voting in the supplementary election.
The main election, which held on November
16, could not be concluded on the same day
and INEC announced that election in 65 polling
units in Obosi ward in Idemili North Local
Government Area would be repeated.
The Chief Returning Officer said the voting
population in the areas where election did not
take place was large enough to make the
second or third person defeat the leading
candidate. He, therefore, declared the election
inconclusive.
Following the development, INEC declared that
supplementary election would in 210 polling
units, where 113,113 voters could not vote on
November 16. The areas affected cut across 15
local government areas and most of them
(160)were in Idemili North.
Epoke said the Electoral Act required that for a
winner to be declared in an election, the
difference in the total voting population of the
areas where election was cancelled should be
less than the difference between the votes
scored by the candidate with the highest votes
and the votes of the candidate with the second
highest votes.
The returning officer had reported that the
total voting population in the areas where
election was cancelled was 113,113, which was
higher than the 79,754 difference between the
leading candidate’s votes and the second
highest candidate’s votes, saying the
commission had no choice but to declare the
election inconclusive.
“The rule guiding this election is that for a
winner to emerge, he must have majority of
votes cast and the required spread of 25 per
cent of votes in two thirds of the local
government areas.
“We observed that due to many reasons, there
were a lot of cancelled votes that made it
difficult for a winner to emerge,” Epoke said.
He said the winner of the election would be
declared only after election has been
conducted in areas where the election was
cancelled.
In declaring Obiano winner, Epoke said the
APGA candidate did not only win the majority
of the votes cast, but also fulfilled the
requirement that the winner should score 25
per cent of the total votes cast in two thirds of
the local governments in the state, in
Anambra’s case 14 local government areas.
Meanwhile, the Independent National Electoral
Commission Resident Commissioner in Rivers
State, Mr Aniedi Ikoiwak, has commended the
people of Anambra for coming out to vote in
Saturday’s supplementary governorship
election.
The electoral commissioner, who supervised
the election in Onitsha South and Onitsha
North council areas, spoke at Okija hall, where
voting took place in four polling units.
“The important thing here is that for so many
places where I have visited, the party agents
were there, especially those of the major
parties.
“It is a clear indication that there had not
been any boycott of the election by any of the
parties.
“The people were interested in completing this
exercise so that at the end of the day, their
governor would be announced to them,’’ he
said.
Ikoiwak said NEC directed its poll officers to
display the Form 60E on the day of the
exercise, which would show that the election
had been completed peacefully.
“You cannot display that form if you do not
have a conducive environment.
“And that form would display the result in each
unit for members of the public to copy and
know what happened in the unit,’’ he said.

Source= punchng.com