Biodun Oyebanji, the candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC scored the highest votes to emerge clear winner of Ekiti governorship election at the conclusion of the tally of results of the election early Sunday morning.
Oyebanji scored 187057 votes to beat his closest challenger, Segun Oni, the candidate of Social Democratic Party, SDP who came second in the election.
Oni scored 82, 211 votes to beat the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP candidate who scored 67457 to place third in the election.
Oyebanji also won in 15 out of the 16 local governments areas of thr state.
Seventeen political parties participated in the election.
A total of 360,753 votes were cast in the election described generally as peaceful and well conducted by observers.
Declaring the winner, Prof. Oyebode Adebowale, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer, said Oyebanji polled a total of 187, 057 to win the election.
He said that Oyebanji had certified the law and was, therefore, declared the winner.
“That I, Prof. Oyebode Adebowale, hereby satified that I am the Returning Officer of the Ekiti 2022 Governorship Election held on June 18.
“That Biodun Oyebanji, the candidate of APC, having certified the requirements of the law, is hereby declared winner and returned,” Adebowale declared.
The INEC Returning Officer, who is also the Vice-Chancellor, University of Ibadan, while given the break down of the total votes scored by the participated political parties, said that Mr Segun Oni, the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, scored 82, 211, to come second.
According to him, others were the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Chief Bisi Kolawole, who polled 67,457; Accord (A) scored 166; African Action Congress (AAC) 409; All Progressives Grand Alliance,(APGA) 17 while Action Democratic Congress (ADC) polled 141 votes.
Also, the Action Democratic Party (ADP) scored 5,597; Allied Peoples Movement (APM) -290; Labour Party (LP) polled 195 votes; New Nigeria Peoles Party (NNPP) scored 529 and National Rescue Movement (NRM) 347.
The rest were, Young Progressives Party (YPP)-618; All Peoples Party (APP) polled 1,980 and Zenith Labour Party,(ZLP) polled 282; Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) polled 856.
According to the INEC Returning Officer, the total numbers of registered voters were 989,224, accredited voters, 363,438, valid votes were, 351865 and voided votes were 8888.
However, the Ekiti South West Local Government area Collation Officer, Prof. Gbolagade Jonathan, said there were issues of ballot snatching at Ward 6 , Units 5 and 7.
Jonathan, while given his reports, said they were about sorting the results when gunmen stormed the affected units and started shooting sporadically making the people to run for safety, while they carted away the ballot boxes in the process.
He explained that the two affected units had a total numbers of accredited voters of 266 and 128 respectively.
However, there were complaints of political parties officials inducing voters with money.