THE candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Biodun Oyebanji has been declared winner of the governorship election in Ekiti State.
According to the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Sunday, June 19, Oyebanji won in the 15 local government areas (LGAs) of the state.
Candidate of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Bisi Kolawole won one LGA.
A total of 16 candidates took part in the election.
The INEC Returning Officer and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Ibadan (UI) Kayode Adebowale, made the announcement in the early hours of Sunday after all the results across the state’s 16 LGAs had been collated.
According to him, a total of 351,865 valid votes were recorded from 363,438 voters accredited for the election.
The total number of registered voters in the state is 989,224.
Oyebanji, the APC candidate, won the election with 187,057 votes.
He beat his closest challenger, Olusegun Oni of Social Democratic Party (SDP), with 104,846 votes.
Oni, the SDP candidate, came second with 82,211 votes.
Bisi Kolawole of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was third with 67,457 votes.
Although the election was relatively peaceful, there were, however, reported cases of vote buying.
Oyebanji was a former lecturer, a banker and a businessman. He was the immediate former Secretary to the State Government (SSG).
He holds BSC and Master’s degrees in Political Science (International Relations and Strategic Studies). He is 55 years old.
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