The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Enugu State, Peter Mbah, is leading after collation of results of the Saturday’s governorship election from all the 17 local government areas of the state.
OBSERVERSTIMES earlier reported that the Labour Party (LP) candidate in the election, Chijioke Edeoga, was leading with a slim margin after collation of results of the elections from eight of the 17 council areas in the state.
But the PDP candidate overtook him after the collation of the nine remaining council areas in the state.
The results of the entire 17 local government areas of the state were announced on Sunday at the State Collation Centre of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Enugu.
Of the 17 local government areas, the PDP candidate won in nine while the LP candidate won in eight of them.
The nine council areas where Mr Mbah won are: Uzo-Uwani, Udi, Ezeagu, Aninri, Nkanu West, Enugu South, Awgu, Enugu East and Nkanu East, where he hails from.
The LP candidate, on his part, won in the following council areas: Igbo-Eze North, Oji River, Igbo-Etiti, Igbo-Eze South, Nsukka, Udenu, Enugu North and Isi-Uzo, where he comes from.
Although the winner of the governorship election has not been declared as of the time of this report, the results from all the council areas tallied by PREMIUM TIMES showed that Mr Mbah, the PDP candidate, has polled a total of 174,289 votes to defeat the LP candidate, who scored 157, 543 to come second.
The difference in the margin between the PDP and the LP candidates is 16,746 votes.
The candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Frank Nweke Jr, garnered 18,061 votes to come a distant third while the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the election, Uche Nnaji, trails with a total of 14,808 votes.
Collation Officers from all the council areas of the state submitted the results to the Returning Officer for the election and Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Umudike, Maduebibisi Iwe.
However, Mr Iwe, a professor and the returning officer, stepped down results from three local government areas following varied allegations of non-use of the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BVAS) machine and other irregularities.
The three local government areas where results were stepped down for review include Nkanu East, Nsukka and Enugu East.
