Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Mr Emmanuel Aguariavwodo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the 12 October Delta Central Senatorial District bye-election.
The Returning Officer, Prof. John Arubayi, announced on Sunday morning in Ughelli, Delta, that Aguariavwodo polled 263,024 votes to defeat eight other candidates.
Arubayi said Mr Otega Emerhor of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 29,075 votes to emerge second, while Mr Ede Dafinone of the Democratic Peoples’ Party (DPP) followed with 29,055 votes.
According to the declared result, PDP won in all the eight local government areas in the senatorial district, though the opposition parties claimed there were malpractices.
But the INEC official described the conduct of the by-election as free and transparent and urged all the political parties that took part in the exercise to accept the result in good faith.
He commended the political parties and their agents for the peaceful conduct of the election.
Voting started late in many of the voting centres, following the late arrival of electoral and voting materials at the polling units and the voting period was extended for hours as a result.
Earlier, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Delta, Mrs Gesila Khan, had described the election as peaceful in spite of some initial challenges.
She said “normally, voting ought to have started at 12.30 p.m., but because of the initial hiccups, it was not so. However, it ended peacefully at the end of the day.’’
The resident electoral commissioner said the initial challenges encountered were a normal occurrence.
“There can never be 100 per cent perfection in any election conduct anywhere in the world,’’ she added.
The Commissioner of Police in Delta, Mr Ikechukwu Aduba, said the bye-election was peaceful because his men were at all the voting centres to maintain law and order.
Aduba had earlier warned against violence during the poll, threatening to deal with any person found disrupting the election.
He had also warned policemen in the state to steer clear politicians and government officials during the exercise, saying that any violation of the order would be severely punished.
The bye-election followed the death of Sen. Pius Eweridoh of DPP on June 30, 2013.
Source:saharareporters
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Reporting by Babatunde Akinsola in Lagos, Nigeria.
