The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Alhaji Haruna Isah, winner of the Lokoja/Kogi House of Representatives by-election held on Saturday.
Isah recorded 26, 860 votes to defeat his closest rival, Alhaji Bashir Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who recorded 14, 845 votes.
Announcing the results, the Returning Officer, Prof. Rotimi Ajayi, said Ahmed Imam of the Social Democratic Party, SDP, recorded 2, 916 votes, while the candidate of the Accord Party recorded 149 votes.
The candidate of the Alternative Democratic Congress, ADC, recorded 2,984 votes.
The results also show the Labour Party as having 90 votes; Democratic Alternative, 159 votes and Megga Party of Nigeria, 50 votes.
He said that 19,960 votes from 17 polling units were cancelled due to violence and other malpractices, saying that 15 of the affected polling units were in Lokoja Local Government Area, while two were from Kogi Local Government Area.
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Giving a further breakdown of the election results, the Returning Officer said that 51, 669 voters were accredited for the election while only 50,036 actually cast their votes.
According to him, valid votes were 48,165, while rejected votes were 1,871.
The by-election was conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to fill the vacancy created by the death of the former occupant of the seat, Umar Buba Jibrin, on March 30.
Jibrin was also of the APC.
