Edo State Governorship Election Result: APC’s Obaseki in Lead
Early results from Edo South also showed that Obaseki was leading in seven of the local government areas, including Oredo, that make up the district, but two were hotly contested.
In Edo Central, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr. Ize-Iyamu, was said to be leading in three out of the five local governments except Igueben, where the APC had a marginal lead, but was too close to call.
But before a clearer picture began to emerge last night, a surprise upset was recorded yesterday, when the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, lost at his Polling Unit 1, Ward 2 in Oredo Local Government Area by 69 votes to the 78 polled by the PDP. Incidentally, his polling unit was the same one where Ize-Iyamu’s wife, Idia, voted.
Obaseki, on the other hand, won his Unit 19, Ward 4 comfortably, garnering 160 votes against the PDP’s 77 votes. Ize-Iyamu, however, completely obliterated his opponent at his own Unit 26, Ward 5 in Orhionmwon Local Government Area by 369 votes to the 1 vote recorded by Obaseki.
In other early results, the state PDP chairman, Chief Dan Orbih and Oghiadomhe also delivered their units to the PDP.
Overall, statewide reports revealed a substantially orderly and peaceful poll, evidencing the changes made by INEC and the security provided by security forces deployed in the state for the exercise that had 1,915,105 registered voters.
INEC had used the election to test-run its new polling processes introduced under the Electoral Act. One of them was the simultaneous accreditation and voting, which allows a registered voter to proceed to cast his/her ballot immediately after accreditation.
In the past, there was a time lag between accreditation and the casting of votes, a process that was time consuming and stressful for the electorate. With the new voting procedure, the polling time was shorter.
