APC wins Kogi house of reps seat

Haruna Isah, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Lokoja/Kogi federal constituency , has been declared winner of Saturday’s bye-election.

According to NAN, Rotimi Ajayi, returning officer, announced the results in Lokoja, the state capital, on Sunday.

He said Isah polled 26,860 votes to defeat Bashir Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who polled 14, 845 votes.

Ajayi said Ahmed Imam of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) scored 2, 916 votes while the candidates of Accord Party (AP) and Alternative Democratic Congress (ADC) scored 149 votes and 2,984 votes, respectively.

He added that the Labour Party (LP) scored 90 votes; Democratic Alternative (DA) scored 159 votes; while Megga Party of Nigeria (MPN) scored 50 votes.

He said 19,960 votes from 17 polling units were cancelled due to violence and other forms of malpractice, adding that 15 of the affected polling units were in Lokoja local government area, while two were in Kogi local government area.

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 are 48,165, while rejected votes are 1,871.

The bye-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.