Another G-5 Governor, Ikpeazu loses senatorial bid as Abaribe clinches Abia South
From Boniface Okoro, Umuahia
Abia State governor, Dr. Okezie Ikpeazu, has lost his bid to represent Abia South senatorial district in the Senate as Senator Harcourt Enyinnaya Abaribe cruised to victory in the Abia South senatorial contest.
Abaribe, the candidate of All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) polled a total of 49,693 votes to dust his challengers; with his closet rival, the candidate of Labour Party, Mr Chinedu Onyeizu, securing 43,903 votes and Ikpeazu, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) coming a distant third with 28,422 votes.
The Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Georgina Ugwuanyi, declared Abaribe the winner of the election in Aba on Tuesday; after uncertainties which trailed the polling.
Few hours before announcing the result, Ugwuanyi had declared the election inconclusive, citing a substantial number of polling units, totalling 108 votes which had issues requiring rescheduling election in the affected polling units.
However, she explained that she had to announce the result following a directive from national headquarters of INEC that she should declare the winners of the senatorial and House of Representatives polls.
For Aba North/Aba South Federal Constituency, Ugwuanyi declared that Labour Party’s candidate, Emeka Nnamani, polled 35,502 to beat the APGA candidate, Alex Ikwecheghi, who got 22,465 votes, while the incumbent Representative, Chimaobi Ebisike of PDP scored 13,388 votes.
