PDP Defeats APC, Others In Rivers South East Senatorial By-election
The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Olaka Nwogu, has emerged victorious in the Rivers South East Senatorial District by-election held on Saturday, defeating flag-bearerss of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Labour Party (LP) and Action Alliance (AA).
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Nwogu the winner after the collation of results from the seven local government areas that make up the senatorial district.
The by-election was conducted to fill the vacancy created by the death of former senator representing the district, Barry Mpigi, who died in February.
Announcing the final results at the Rivers South East Senatorial District Collation Centre located at the Khana Local Government Secretariat in Bori, the Returning Officer, Professor Rosemary Ogu, said the PDP candidate secured an overwhelming victory.
According to her, Nwogu polled 47,961 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Osarokaka Ebenezer Erewari of the APC, who garnered 1,647 votes.
The Action Alliance candidate, Douglass Fabeke, received 1,175 votes, while the Labour Party's Sam Kinani secured 367 votes.
Declaring the result, Ogu said: “The election was contested. The candidates received the following votes: Douglass Fabeke, male, of the AA political party, received a total of 1,175 votes; Osarokaka Ebenezer Erewari, male, of the APC political party, received 1,647 votes; Sam Kinani, male, of the LP political party, received 367 votes; and Nwogu Olaka Johnson, male, of the PDP political party, received 47,961 votes.
“That Nwogu Olaka Johnson of the PDP, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected.”
Nwogu, who is considered an ally of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, won the election by a wide margin across the senatorial district, which comprises Khana, Gokana, Tai, Eleme, Andoni, Oyigbo and Opobo/Nkoro local government areas.
Meanwhile, INEC has assured voters that it is taking steps to address technical issues associated with the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) to guarantee smoother elections in future exercises.
The Head of Department, Voter Education, INEC Rivers State, Geraldine Ekelemo, disclosed this while speaking with journalists during an inspection tour of some of the participating local government areas alongside the INEC National Commissioner representing the South-South, May Agbamuche-Mbu.
Ekelemo explained that the commission had deployed backup BVAS machines and stationed technical personnel across the seven councils to quickly replace malfunctioning devices.
“Concerning the hitches, INEC was proactive,” she said.
“The technical hitches that we saw with one or two polling units and the BVAS assigned to that particular polling unit, INEC was proactive in ensuring that backup BVAS were supplied and distributed to each of these LGAs.
“And we had technical staff on the ground in each of these LGAs to quickly reconfigure another BVAS to replace the malfunctioning BVAS.
“Each of the seven LGAs had additional BVAS to serve as backups. These are all the things INEC is doing to ensure that those gaps are immediately closed.”