The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared Siminialayi Fubara, the candidate of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the winner of Rivers State governorship election held on Saturday 18 March.
Fubara scored 302614 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Tonye Cole, the candidate of All Progressives Congress, APC who scored 95, 274 votes, according to results declared by the collation officer in Port Harcourt late Monday evening.
The candidate of Social Democratic Party, SDP, Magnus Abe came, third in the election with 46, 981 votes.
Siminialayi won the election in all the 23 local government areas of the state to be declared successor to Governor Nyesom Wike.
Prof. Akpofure Rim-Rukeh, the State Returning Officer for INEC who declared the results on Monday at the INEC headquarter in Rivers.
Further details of the election results revealed that the governorship candidate of the Labour Party (LP), Mrs Beatrice Itubor, scored 22,224 votes to come fourth, Accord Party (A) scored 7155; Action Alliance (AA),1693; All Alliance Congress (AAC) 386; Action Democratic Party (ADP), 925; and Action Peoples Party (APP), 973 voted.
The Returning Officer also said that ADC scored 940 votes; ADP 925; APGA, 489; APM, 568; APP, 973; BP, 137; NNPP, 335; NRM, 2,258; YPP, 664; and Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), 338.
According to Rim-Rukeh, “Siminalayi Fubara of PDP, having scored the highest votes and had the 25 per cent spread with satisfactory margin of lead, and having satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared winner.”
Rim-Rukeh gave the state’s total number of registered voters as 3,537,190 and the number of accredited voters as 496,852
He said that the total votes cast were 494,604; total valid votes, 483,934 while the total number of rejected votes was10,670 in the election.
The Man ‘Sim’
Popularly known as “Sim,” Fubara, was accountant general of Rivers State before he emerged the flagbearer of PDP for the 2023 governorship election in Rivers State.
He was born in Opobo Town in Opobo/Nkoro Local Government Area of Rivers State and studied Accountancy at the Rivers State University of Science and Technology.
He started his career in 2003 as a principal accountant with the Rivers State Senior Secondary Schools Board. He rose to the position of director of finance and accounts at the State’s government house in 2015 and rose to the position of permanent secretary in March 2020.
He is a Fellow of the Nigerian Institute of Management, Fellow of Association of National Accountants of Nigeria.
*Updated