Fidelia Soriwei, Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, Olaka Nwogu, winner of the Rivers South-East Senatorial District bye-election held on Saturday.
Announcing the result at the collation centre in Bori, Khana Local Government Area, the Returning Officer, Professor Rosemary Ogu, said Nwogu secured 47,961 votes to defeat candidates of three other political parties that participated in the poll.
The bye-election was conducted to fill the vacant seat following the death of former senator representing the district, Barry Mpigi, in February.
The election took place across the seven local government areas that make up the senatorial district: Khana, Gokana, Tai, Eleme, Andoni, Oyigbo and Opobo.
Declaring the result, Ogu said: “The election was contested. The candidates received the following votes. Douglass Fabeke, Male of the political party, AA, received a total of 1175. OsaroKaka Ebenezer Erewar, male, of the APC political party, 1647 votes. Sam Kinani, male, of the LP political party, 367 votes. Nwogu Olaka Johnson, male, of the PDP political party, 47961 votes.
“That Nwogu Olaka Johnson of the PDP, having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected.”
Nwogu, who is considered an ally of the Minister of the Federal Capital Territory, Nyesom Wike, defeated his closest challenger, Osarokaka Ebenezer Erewari of the All Progressives Congress, who polled 1,647 votes.
Meanwhile, INEC said measures were put in place to address technical issues involving the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System during the exercise.
Speaking during an inspection of participating local government areas, the Head of Voter Education in Rivers State, Geraldine Ekelemo, said backup BVAS devices and technical personnel were deployed to ensure any malfunctioning machines were promptly replaced.
She said, “Concerning the hitches, INEC was proactive. The technical hitches that we saw with one or two polling units and the B-VAS assigned to that particular polling unit, INEC was proactive in ensuring that backup B-VAS were supplied and distributed to each of these LGAs.
“And we had technical staff on the ground in each of these LGAs to quickly reconfigure another B-VAS to replace the malfunctioning B-VAS.
“Each of the seven LGAs had additional B-VAS to serve as backups. These are all the things INEC is doing to ensure that those gaps are immediately closed.”
