The highly competitive Kogi State Governorship Election on November 11, 2023 has concluded with Usman Ododo, the candidate from the All Progressives Congress (APC), emerging as the victorious candidate.
The announcement was made by Prof Johnson Urama, the State Returning Officer and Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academics) of the University of Nigeria, Nsukka, at 10:23pm on Sunday.
“Ahmed Usman Ododo of APC, having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” Urama declared in a room crowded with party agents and election observers.
Ododo emerged as the winner with 446,237 votes, defeating his closest rival, Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who received 259,052 votes. Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secured 46,362 votes.
The results from all 21 local government areas (LGAs) in the state were collected on Sunday, with the candidate from the All Progressives Congress (APC) winning the majority of the LGAs.
Ododo, a former Auditor General of Local Government in Kogi under Governor Yahaya Bello, was the preferred candidate of the governor, who is completing his two terms of eight years.
Melaye and several civil rights groups expressed concern on Saturday about the presence of “filled result sheets” in the Ogori/Magongo Local Government Area of the North Central state. The PDP candidate also demanded that the election be suspended due to violence and vote buying. As a result, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) suspended the election in nine wards within the local government area.
On Sunday, INEC announced that new elections will take place in 59 polling units in the Ogori/Magongo Local Government Area on November 18, 2023.
INEC, however, has set a condition for the polls to take place in the 59 polling units, stating that “the decision to hold fresh elections is subject to the Returning Officer’s determination of the application of the Margin of Lead Principle”.
In his statement on Sunday, Urama stated that there were a total of 16,247 Permanent Voter Cards in the affected polling units. This number was considered insignificant compared to the approximately 200,000 votes received by the APC candidate, who was leading ahead of his closest rival, Ajaka.
Due to the significant margin of lead, the elections that were originally scheduled by INEC for the following Saturday in the 59 polling units will no longer take place.
Both Ajaka and Melaye have expressed their dissatisfaction with the election results and have accused INEC and security agencies of colluding with the ruling APC party in Kogi.
