INEC declares Charles Soludo winner of Anambra Governorship election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Prof. Chukwuma Soludo the winner of Saturday’s governorship election in Anambra State.

The returning officer for the election and Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof. Florence Obi announced the final result at about 1:50 am on Wednesday.

Obi announce the result after adding the figures garnered by each of the political parties in the Tuesday supplementary polls to those already declared on Sunday from the 20 Local Government Areas of the state.

She announced the votes polled by the political parties as follows; APC, 43,285, APGA, 112, 229, PDP, 53,807, among others.

She also announced the total number of valid votes in the election as; 241,523, rejected votes stood at 8,108, while the total vote cast in the election was given as 249,631.

Obi said: “This is the moment we have been waiting for. I want to use this opportunity to thank the chairman of INEC and his team for this opportunity given to me and my university to partake in this Anambra 2021. I thank the service chiefs, the people of Anambra State, we remain very grateful.

“Allow me to read this form EC8E, which I have completed. I Prof Florence Banku Obi hereby certify that I’m the returning officer of the Anambra governorship election held on 6 and 9 of November.

“That Charles Chukwuma Soludo of APGA, having certified the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner of the election,” Prof. Obi said.

Former chairman of APGA, Senator Victor Umeh while reacting to the victory said the election was transparent, and is the best election so far held in the state.

“We have again won the state, despite the fact that some people boasted that they will win the state. This is to tell them that APGA is on ground, and it is not just about boasting of winning, but doing your homework well. I urge them to concede victory to our party and the candidate, because the people made a clear choice.”

Breakdown of votes by the four frontline parties according to LGAs

No Retreat

Soludo’s victory comes on the heels of a toughly contested election that spilled into a supplementary poll over security concerns in one of the 21 local government areas – Ihiala.

As the usual practice, election results were trickling in a day after the election and those from 20 local government areas were collated, except Ihiala.

Party agents, reporters, and observers, among others, had waited until the early hours of the third day (Monday) for a winner to be declared before events took a different turn.

Rather than declaring a winner, Professor Obi announced the suspension of the collation exercise despite announcing the total votes scored by the contenders in the 20 LGAs collated so far.

She went on to announce that a supplementary election should be conducted in the 326 polling units across Ihiala, saying this was in line with the provisions of the Constitution.

Breakdown of votes by all 18 political parties

The former banker was elected as the next Chief Executive of Anambra on his second race to govern the state. He first contested in 2009 on the platform of the PDP.

The build-up to the election was characterised by serious campaigning in an atmosphere filled with security concerns and uncertainty.

Amid these concerns, the Federal Government considered declaring a state of emergency in the state to ensure the poll would proceed as scheduled.

It took the deployment of some 43,000 police officers and hundreds of other security agents, including soldiers for the election to be held.

Soludo’s victory means he will be succeeding Willie Obiano who is in the final months of his second term and that APGA will be retaining power in the state, which it has governed since 2006.

Threats Defied

After weeks of uncertainty and mounting tension, the election held peacefully as the electorate went to their respective polling units to vote for the candidates of their choice, defying security threats.

Observers monitoring the election, however, reported incidents of vote-buying and failure of accreditation devices – Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS), among others.

The device failure was also experienced at the governor-elect’s polling unit in Aguata Local Government where he waited for over five hours before he could vote.

This initially sparked tension at the polling station as just one person out of the 717 registered voters was able to vote, about one and half hours into the election.

Elsewhere, the other frontline candidates voted without any glitch recorded.

Uneasy Quest

In events that led to the election, it was an uneasy quest for Soludo in his journey to succeed Obiano as the next governor of the state.

Following a series of drama accompanied by the crisis within APGA and conflicting judgements resulting from the party’s primary, INEC finally recognised Soludo as APGA candidate and Ibezim Onyekachukwu Gilbert as his running mate on August 19.

This followed a judgement of the Court of Appeal in Kano which set aside the judgement of the Jigawa State High Court on the party’s leadership and nomination of candidates.

More than a month later, APGA officially flagged off its campaign for the election, and Soludo was presented the party’s flag to officially recognise him as its candidate – bringing an end to all disputes relating to the party’s candidacy.

At the event held six weeks before the election, Soludo began his acceptance speech with a song titled ‘Who Can Battle With The Lord?’ after which he thanked the party leaders and members for their support all through the events that led to his emergence as the party’s candidate.

“The next thing that should happen in Anambra will be to consolidate the wonderful works that are ongoing, especially under the 16 years of APGA in Anambra State,” he promised.