Usman Ododo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has emerged as the winner of the Kogi state governorship election.
He secured 446,237 votes, defeating Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) who came second with 259,052 votes.
Dino Melaye, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 46,362 votes.
Ododo, a former auditor general of local government in Kogi, was backed by the outgoing governor Yahaya Bello.
The APC had earlier expressed confidence in Ododo’s victory, and the final results confirmed his win.
“Yesterday in the five local governments of central senatorial district in Kogi state, there was no election. In the end surprisingly, accreditation was done manually, the BVAS was not used,” Melaye had said.
SDP had called for the cancellation of the Kogi gubernatorial election, specifically in the central senatorial district of the state.
A petition from the SDP addressed INEC stated the party’s rejection of the election results in five local government areas (LGAs) of Kogi.
INEC had announced fresh elections in nine wards in Ogori Magongo LGA due to irregularities, but the returning officer maintained that the final results were not affected.
“PVCs collected in the cancelled areas is 16,247. It doesn’t affect the result significantly so we will go into the announcement of results,” he said.