Official: Soludo Is Anambra Governor Elect

*NNAMDI OKOLIE in AWKA *

With the votes from Ihiala Local council area collated after the supplementary gubernatorial election, candidate of All Progressives Grand Alliance  (APGA) cruised to victory with a total of 46.5 percent of total valid votes cast.

The state returning officer of the Anambra governorship election,  Professor Florence Obi announced after final collation of the results early Wednesday morning that a total of 253388 voters were accredited to  vote in the election.
However, there were a total of 241,523 valid votes, with 8108 rejected votes.
Total votes cast stood at 249,631.
Of these votes, Soludo earned 112,229 votes; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate  Mr. Valentine Chineto Ozigbo got
53,807 while Senator Andy Uba of APC got 43,285. Senator Ifeanyi Ubah of Young Progressives Party (YPP) scored 21, 261 to come fourth.

It will be recalled that INEC suspended collation of results late Sunday night and declared the exercise inconclusive following none conduct of election in Ihiala area.

The commission however fixed Tuesday November 9 for supplementary election in Ihiala and subsequently reserved 9pm as time for continuation of results collation.

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

She  said that Soludo won in 19 out 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 3445 votes, APGA scored second while Apc came third in the same council.

Senator Ifeanyi Uba of the Young Progressive Party (YPP) won in his home Local Government, Nnewi North in spite coming a distant fourth in the overall score card with 21261 votes.

The returning officer who doubles as the Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar said Prof. Chukwuma Soludo having scored the highest number of votes was declared winner of the election#