Politics
By Kennedy Nnamani
PROF. Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti, the returning officer of the Abia state Governorship election, has declared Alex Otti of the Labour Party as the winner of the Abia state governorship election which held on March 18.
Prof. Oti, who has been under pressure due to the contentious results from Obingwa LGA, made the declaration on Wednesday, March 22, after all the parties reconvened for the collation of the results based on directives from Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, head office in Abuja, where the Bimodal Voter Accreditations System, BVAS, used for the elections were taken to for inspection.
Otti scored 175,467 votes to emerge the winner while Okey Ahiwe of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, followed with 88,529 votes, and Enyinnaya Nwafor of the Young Peoples Party, YPP got 28,972 votes.
A breakdown of the controversial Obingwa results showed that LP got 3,776, while the PDP scored 9,962.
The announcement brought to a close the governorship and State Assembly election process which has lasted for four days.
With this result, Otti has managed to break the jinx of the PDP hold on the state since the advent of civilian administration in 1999.
Abia state has been one of the worst governed states in the southeast with dilapidated infrastructure littering the state.
Okezie Ikpeazu, the outgoing governor, who is a Ph.D. holder in Biochemical Pharmacology, had campaigned on turning Aba, a major city in the state into a modern city and Eldorado, but he failed in fulfilling his campaign promises.
As Otti and his supporters celebrate their well-deserved victory, he should have at the back of his mind the enormous task he has to rebuild Abia state, especially Aba that is known as the citadel of small and medium scale enterprises in the southeast in fulfilment of his campaign promises.
KN
Tags: Alex Otti BVAS Kennedy Nnamani Labour Party Okey Ahiwe Prof. Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti
