THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the incumbent governor, Douye Diri, winner of the governorship election held in Bayelsa state on Saturday, November 11.
Diri, who’s a candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), defeated his closest opponent and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Timipre Sylva, having polled 175,196 votes.
The APC candidate won in only two LGAs and scored a total of votes of 110,108 across the state, while the Labour Party counterpart polled 905 votes.
The returning officer for the election, Farouk Kuta, declared Diri the winner of the election amidst several uproar in the state, particularly in the collation centre, earlier today.
The collation of results by INEC was adjourned by INEC about five times since the conclusion of the voting process on Saturday.
Most of the adjournments were due to the non-readiness of the LGA results, which stretched the collation process from Saturday to Monday.
The ICIR reports that before the last adjournment, party agents clashed following the collation of the Brass LGA results.
Agent of the Accord party, identified as Victor, said there was a riot in the Brass LGA that claimed the life of a party agent and blamed it on the utterance of the deputy governorship candidate of the APC, Joshua MacIver.
MacIver recently came under fire for making inciting statements during campaigns in the Twon Brass area of the state, urging his supporters to attack opposition supporters.
Diri won six out of the eight LGA results collated, including Kolokuma/Opokuma, Ogbia, Yenegoa, Sagbama, Ekeremor and Southern Ijaw.
The ICIR reported that Diri won the election in his polling unit with a landslide, clearing 218 out of 219 votes cast. He also cleared all the votes in nearby polling units, taking all the 150 votes cast in polling unit 003, Ibaba Wari primary school, Sampur community, Kolokuma/Opokuma LGA.
Diri also won the polling unit of the Labour Party candidate in the election, Udengs Eradiri.
Meanwhile, Diri’s closest opponent and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Sylva, won two LGAs.
Sylva won Brass Local Government Area, polling 18,431 votes while PDP’s Diri got 12,602. APC also won in Nembe LGA, having scored 22,248 votes. Diri had 4,556 there.
The election in Bayelsa is one of the three off-cycle governorship polls held on Saturday.
The other two states are are Imo and Kogi.
Usman Mustapha is a solution journalist with International Centre for Investigative Reporting. You can easily reach him via: [email protected]. He tweets @UsmanMustapha_M
Ijeoma Opara is a journalist with The ICIR. Reach her via [email protected] or @ije_le on Twitter.