INEC declares APC’s Dapo Abiodun winner of Ogun governorship election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Mr Dapo Abiodun, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of Saturday’s governorship polls in Ogun State.

The state Returning Officer for the governorship poll, Prof. Idowu Olayinka, announced in Abeokuta at about 12. 45 a.m. on Monday that Abiodun scored a total of 241, 670 votes to clinch victory.

Olayinka, who is Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, explained that Abiodun beat his closest rival, Mr Adekunle Akinlade of the Allied Peoples Movement (APM) who came second with 222, 153 votes.

He said that the candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) came third with 110, 422 votes while the Peoples Democratic Party Candidate, Sen. Buruji Kashamu, who scored 70,290 votes, was fourth.

A breakdown of the results on local government basis as announced by local government collation officers showed that Abiodun won in 11 council areas and scored over 25 per cent of total votes cast in 16 out of 20 local governments in the state.

The councils won by Abiodun are Ijebu-Ode, Odogbolu, Odeda, Ijebu North-East, Sagamu, Abeokuta – South, Ijebu-East.

Others are Remo-North, Ogun Waterside, Obafemi-Owode and Ikenne,

Akinlade of the APM won in six council areas which are Abeokuta – North, Egbado-South, Ewekoro, Ipokia, Ifo and Ado Odo-Ota.

Isiaka of the ADC won in Imeko- Afon and Egbado-North local governments while Kashamu of the PDP won in the Ijebu-North local government area.

According to Olayinka, the total number of registered voters was 2,375,003 while the total number of accredited voters was 708,807.

He said that the number of valid votes was 680,947 while 20,969 votes were rejected.

Olayinka added that the total number of votes cast was 701,916.

The Returning Officer, who noted that the margin of lead between Abiodun and Akinlade was 19,517 votes said that the figure is more than the total cancelled votes which he puts at 7,100.