By: Ade Adeleke
The Benue state governor Samuel Ortom won the election with a margin 89,318 votes.
He went into the make-up poll with a lead of 81,554 votes having polled 410,576 votes at the March 9 election at which Jime scored 329,022 votes.
However, the INEC declared that the lead margin of 81,554 in favour of the PDP candidate was less than 121,019 registered voters in the 204 polling units across the state where elections were either cancelled or did not hold, necessitating the supplementary exercise, which Ortom also won.
In Plateau, Governor Simon Lalong won his re-election bid having scored 595, 582 votes to defeat his closest rival, Useni of the PDP who got 546, 813 votes.
Lalong was declared winner by the Returning Officer, Professor Richard Kimbir, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, Benue State after the supplementary election held in nine of the 17 local government areas of the state.
While making the declaration, Kimbir said valid votes were 1,159,954; rejected votes 16,188; total votes cast 1,176,142.
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of Sokoto won a very tight governorship race in Sokoto, beating his APC challenger with 342 votes.
He scored 512,002 votes to beat Alhaji Ahmed Aliyu of the APC, who garnered 511,660 votes. The votes margin is 342 . He won in 12 of the 23 local councils of Sokoto while Aliyu won in 11.
In the supplementary election in 136 polling units across 22 local councils of the state, the APC candidate had 25,515 votes while Tambuwal scored 22,444 votes.
The APC scored 486,145 votes in the March 9 governorship election, while the PDP got 489,558 votes, leaving a margin of 3,413 votes.
The cancelled votes of 75,403 had made the INEC to declare the poll inconclusive, hence the weekend’s supplementary exercise.