For the umpteenth time, Governor of Imo State, Senator Hope Uzodinma has failed to deliver any of governorship candidate of the APC entrusted on him as the campaign master.
After the final results of the Anambra Governorship election, Prof Chukwuma Soludo of the APGA has been declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
At the emergence of Senator Andy Uba as APC governorship candidate few months ago, the Imo State Governor was handed the duty to deliver the party’s candidate.
The mandate to Uzodinma is akin to same charge the leadership of the party handed to him last year for the Edo State governorship contest where he was also in charge of the fortunes of Pastor Ize Iyamu, the party’s candidate.
Similar to what transpired in Edo State, PDP’s Godwin Obaseki trounced Ize Iyamu of APC to win, again, Uzodinma’s candidate in this year’s Anambra election, Andy Uba of APC was roundly beaten by Soludo of APGA.
The APC national office, apparently aware of how Uzodinma emerged the governor of the state and considering his position as the only APC governor in the South East and South South before Dave Umahi of Ebonyi decamped to the ruling party found his worthy to be in charge of the governorship campaigns.
Having lost in Edo in 2020, the results of this November 6th election shows that Uzodinma has also failed to deliver in Anambra.
Before the election, Uzodinma showed impressive marks by ensuring that the ranks of APGA and PDP in the state were weaken to rejig support for APC.
Apart from the defection of State and National Assembly Members of APGA to APC, Uzodinma can be said to be the mastermind of the Deputy Governor’s movement to APC.
In PDP, the LGA Chairmen of the party in Anambra also moved into the Andy Uba’s camp as APC members.
At the end of the hostilities, Soludo pulled 112,229 votes to win the election.
The candidate of APGA was at exactly 1.50am on Wednesday declared winner of the Anambra State governorship election.
He came tops ahead the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate Valentine Ozigbo, who polled 53,807 votes.
Uzodinma’s All Progressives Congress (APC) flagbearer and Andy Uba, scored 43,285 votes to come third.
Senator Ifeanyi Ubah of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) came fourth with 21,261 votes.
The Returning Officer, the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Calabar, Prof Florence Baku-Obi, while declaring Soludo, a former Central Bank Governor, winner having satisfied the requirements of the law, said: “That Prof Charles Chukwuma Soludo of APGA, having satisfied the requirement of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected.”
Before declaring Soludo winner, Prof Banku-Obi had announced the outcome of the supplementary election held in Ihiala Local Government Area on Tuesday.
Election could not hold in Ihiala on Saturday due to logistics and security challenges.
In Ihiala, APGA scored 8,283 votes in the supplementary election, defeating the PDP, which got 2,485 votes; the APC, which scored 343 votes, and YPP, which got 344.
Reports have it that eighteen parties participated in the governorship election for which 2,466,638 voters registered.
Total valid votes were 241,523 out of the 249,631 cast. The rejected votes were 8,108. APGA won in 19 of the 21 council areas.
Trumpeta however learnt that before the election could be concluded on Tuesday, Uzodinma was already back to Owerri, Imo State as he met with members of the Imo State House of Assembly at Government House, Owerri. The return was an indication he had given up before the final election and result of the winner.
