40 Year Old Yahaya Bello is the Next Governor of Kogi

Yahaya Bello, the Governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has won the Kogi state governorship election.

Results released on Sunday morning at the collation center in Kogi, suggests that Bello won the state governorship supplementary election held of Saturday.

Bello added more to the 41,353 votes that the late Audu Abubakar, was using to lead his opponent Captain Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the initial election of November 21, which was declared inconclusive.

The supplementary election became necessary as a result of cancellation of voting in 91 units across 18 Local Government Areas of the state.

Chief Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Emmanuel Kucha, announced in Lokoja, that having fulfilled all legal requirements, Bello is the winner of the election and Kogi Governor-Elect.

Kucha said: “That Yahaya Bello, having polled the highest number of votes and satisfied the law is hereby returned elected”.

From the collated results, APC polled 6,885 while the PDP scored 5,363 votes from the supplementary polls.

Hence, the APC now has 247, 752, as its total number of votes (when added from the last election) while the PDP’s total votes stands at 204,877 (when the last election result is also added).

The constitutional crisis is yet to be resolved — there are a couple of cases going to court. Audu’s running mate, James Faleke, believes he should be declared the inheritor of Audu’s votes having run on a joint ticket with him.

Idris Wada also wants to be declared governor-elect, maintaining that Audu had died with his votes. Bello is, therefore, Kogi’s governor-elect, pending the legal battles.