By Kamil Opeyemi
Siminialayi Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared the winner of the Rivers State governorship election.
State Returning Officer, Professor Akpofure Rim-Rukeh announced the result late Monday night at the end of the two days collation at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Head Office in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
While announcing the result, Professor Akpofure said the PDP candidate polled 302,614 votes to defeat his major contenders Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who scored 95,274 votes while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, and Labour Party (LP)’s, Beatrice Itubo came a distant third and fourth with 46,981 and 22,224 votes respectively.
Professor Akpofure Rim-Rukeh who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources said a total of 496,852 were accredited for the March 18 governorship election out of the 3,537,190 registered voters in the State.
He explained that of the 494,604 total votes cast, 483,934 were valid while 10, 670 were rejected votes.
Party agents at the State Collation Centre with the exception of PDP’s agent rejected the results.
They alleged that the figures were allocated.
Fubara was anointed by the incumbent Governor, Nyesom Wike who will complete his two-term of eight years on May 29th.