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Anambra 2021: Soludo, Ozigbo, Uba Battle For Ihiala Votes Today
The Anambra State Governorship Election gets interesting on Tuesday as supplementary election holds in the Ihiala Local Government Area of the South-East state as the uncertainty over who emerges as the next governor of the state continues.
It could be recalled that Anambra has 21 local government areas and elections were held in 20 LGAs over the weekend.
INEC Chief Returning Officer for the election, Prof Florence Obi, had stated that the Commission was not able to deploy electoral officers to Ihiala because of the volatile security situation in the area.
The Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar had subsequently declared the governorship poll inconclusive and stated that a supplementary election would hold in 362 polling units in Ihiala LGA today, November 9.
Out of the 20 local governments declared, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, Prof. Charles Soludo, was declared winner in 18; the candidate of the Young Progressive Party, Ifeanyi Ubah, won in one; while the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Valentine Ozigbo, emerged victorious in the other one. The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Andy Uba, is yet to win any LGA.
According to the Director, Voter Education and Publicity, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Victor Aluko, there are 148,407 voters in Ihiala.
Aluko, who spoke on a television programme on Monday, stated that although the APGA candidate, Soludo, won 18 of the 20 LGAs where election were held, he cannot be said to be the winner yet because the total votes in Ihiala were more than the margin of votes by the ex-Central Bank of Nigeria governor.
“Currently, the margin of lead is 52,624 votes between the candidate of APGA and the PDP. The candidate of APGA scored 103,146 votes while the candidate of PDP scored 51,322 votes. The margin of lead is 52,624. The total votes in Ihiala is 148,407. Mathematically, the margin of lead is lower than the outstanding votes in Ihiala. So, to be fair, we need to conclude that election Ihiala before we can move forward,” he said.
