Governor Nyesom Wike has won the March 9 Governorship Election in Rivers State, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, declared on Wednesday.
Wike who ran under the umbrella of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 886,264 votes to defeat his closest rival, Biokpomabo Awara, the governorship candidate of the African Alliance Congress (AAC) scored 173,859 votes.
The Returning officer, Professor Teddy Adias of the Niger Delta University Otuoke, Bayelsa state, who announced the results, noted that 3,048,741 were the total registered voters in the state.
Adias informed that the total accredited votes were 1,130,445 and the total valid votes were 1,102,823 while he total votes cast were 1,123,840.
H stated that 249,324 were the total number of registered voters in places where elections did not hold.
Professor Teddy Adias who adjudged that he had satisfied all the requirements and returned him (Wike), duly elected.
Wike’s victory comes after tense polling exercise in Rivers State, which recorded cases of violence and electoral anomalies that sought to mar the election.
The pressure encountered in the course of the governorship race began to build up with the exclusion of the APC from ballot papers, following court injunctions barring INEC from recognising APC candidates for Rivers elections.
On Saturday, March 9, the governorship election in the state finally got underway, however, the process was marred in various locations by violence, with various reports of clashes between alleged thugs and security operatives.
On March 10, INEC suspended the collation of the results of the election in the state, citing electoral violence.
The electoral umpire later announced a schedule of activities for the resumption of the exercise, with collation and announcement of results slated to hold between April 2 and April 5.
With security beefed up in the state, and after the court dismissed a suit seeking to stop INEC from collating results, the electoral umpire headed back to Rivers to complete the exercise.
On resumption of collation on Tuesday, April 2, results for 15 local government areas were aggregated, after which the INEC postponed the exercise for a conclusion on Wednesday, April 3.
However, the collation exercise resumed on Wednesday amid protest by some party members and agents.
