The Anambra State gubernatorial elections which took place on November 6, 2021, has been declared inconclusive by Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The declaration was made by the State Returning Officer for the Anambra election, Professor Florence Obi, who is the vice-chancellor of the University of Calabar. The announcement which came in the wee hours of Monday, November 8, 2021, was made on the premises that there was no election in Ihiala Local Government Area which has over 148,000 registered voters.
On the reason why elections could not hold in the local government, INEC said there were threats of insecurity from the LGA which meant the commission could not deploy election materials to the area for Saturday’s election. Professor Obi, therefore, declared that a supplementary election will hold in 362 polling units in Ihiala Local Government Area on Tuesday, November 9, 2021, so that the elections will be conclusive.
Meanwhile, Professor Chukwuma Soludo, the candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), is already in the lead with a total vote of 103, 946 votes as he has 18 local government areas out of the 21 in the state. Following in second place is the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP)’s Valentine Ozigbo who scored a total of 51,322 votes and only won in only one local government area.
Defending the reason for declaring the elections inconclusive, Professor Florence Obi, quoted the electoral act, saying the constitution provides for a candidate to secure both the highest number of votes cast and 25 per cent of votes cast in at least two-thirds of the local government areas of the state before he is declared the winner.
“Based on constitutional consideration and provisions of the Electoral Act as well as the Revised Regulations and Guidelines for the Conduct of Elections issued by the commission, the supplementary election is indicated for Ihiala Local Government Area.
“Section 179 (3) of the Constitution provides that a rerun election shall take place if no candidate meets the requirement of sub-section 2. Such a run-off shall be between the candidate with the highest number of votes and one among the remaining candidates who secured a majority of votes in the highest number of local government areas in the state. Therefore, it is important to complete the election in Ihiala to make this determination.”
The final result as announced by INEC is as follows:
A – 1793
AA – 76
AAC- 580
ADC – 313
ADP – 743
APC – 42942
APGA – 103946
APM – 288
APP – 133
BP- 173
LP- 2697
NNPP – 111
NRM – 207
PDP – 51322
PRP – 428
SDP – 782
YPP – 20917
ZLP – 2070
Total valid votes: 229521
Rejected votes: 7841
Total votes cast: 237362
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