Governors Samuel Ortom and Aminu Tambuwal both of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared winners of the just concluded supplementary governorship election in Benue and Sokoto states.
Mr Ortom, who recently defected to the PDP, defeated his closest rival, Emmanuel Jime of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and 31 other contestants.
Declaring the result, the state returning officer, Sebastain Maimako, said Mr Ortom polled a total of 434,473 votes to beat Mr Jime who got 345,155 votes.
Before the supplementary election, Mr Ortom had scored 410,576 votes and had a lead of 81,554 votes over Mr Jime who had scored 329,022 votes.
The supplementary election was held in 204 polling units in 22 local governments, which had a total of 121,299 registered voters.
In Sokoto, Aminu Tambuwal defeated the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Ahmad Aliyu, to emerge the winner in a hotly contested exercise,
The margin of victory was only 342 votes, according to the electoral commission, INEC.
The INEC Returning Officer, Fatima Mukhtar, formally declared Mr Tambuwal winner on Sunday afternoon. She said he scored the highest number of votes after the summation of results from both the March 9 first ballot and Saturday’s supplementary election in Sokoto State.
In the supplementary election, Mr Tambuwal polled 24,444 votes. He scored 489,558 votes in the inconclusive first ballot, bringing his total to 512,002.
His main opponent, Mr Aliyu of the APC, polled a total of 511,660 votes, being the sum of 486,145 and 25,515 in the first ballot and supplementary election, respectively.
Mr Tambuwal narrowly defeated his former deputy with 342 votes.
“Aminu Waziri Tambuwal…is hereby declared winner and is returned elected,” Ms Mukhtar declared at 01:46 p.m. on Sunday.
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