Anambra: INEC halts Soludo’s victory dance, declares election inconclusive

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the Anambra Governorship Election inconclusive, temporarily halting the victory dance of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) candidate, Prof Chukwuma Soludo.

Soludo has won 18 out of the declared 20 local government areas in the election, leaving his rivals, PDP’s Valentine Ozigbo and YPP’s Ifeanyi Uba with one local government apiece. APC’s Andy Uba has won none.

Professor Florence Obi, Returning Officer of the election, declared the election inconclusive at INEC head office in Awka, Anambra State capital, early hours of Monday.

She said the election could not end on first ballot because there was no voting in Ihiala Local Government Area of the state.

Justifying her action with the Electoral Act, Obi said a supplementary election will hold in Ihiala on Tuesday, November 9.

“I, Prof. Florence Obi, with the power vested on me as the returning officer, hereby suspend the collation and announcement of any result until elections are conducted in 320 polling units in the Ihiala Local Government.”

“The supplementary election will take place on Tuesday 9th November,” she said.

The Ihiala election is not likely to upturn Soludo’s position on the leaders’ board, going by the voting pattern already established in the election by Anambra electorates. So far, he has amassed a total of 103,946 votes.

READ: Anambra Election Update: Soludo wins 18 LGA’s out of 21

His closest rival PDP’s Ozigbo has won 51,322 votes while APC’s Uba has got 42,942 votes.

Ihiala Local Government is said to account for 148,407 registered voters and none of the three front runners is from that local government. They all hail from Aguata Local Government Area, carried by APGA’s Soludo.

Announcing the results so far collated, Obi said Soludo polled a total of 103,946 votes, followed by Mr Valentine Ozigbo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who had 51,322 votes while Senator Andy Uba of the All Progressives Congress (APC) came a distant third with 42,942 votes.

There was a total of 246,638 registered voters and 241,090 accredited voters in the election.

The total valid votes stood at 229,521 while rejected votes were 7,841.

A total of 237,362 votes were cast in the election.