Posted by By BONIFACE NZAMA- Calabar on
Senator Liyel Imoke, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, has won a fresh ticket to the rule Cross River State for the next four years, having polled a total of 650,723 votes in the re-run gubernatorial election held last Saturday.
Imoke beat Senator Paul Ukpo of the All Nigeria Peoples Party (ANPP), who scored 15,734 to a distant second position.
The state resident electoral commissioner, Mr. Josiah Uwazuruonye, while declaring Imoke winner on Sunday, said a total of 694,853 votes were cast in the election with 13, 749 declared invalid.
The result released by the electoral commissioner also showed that Democratic Peoples Party (DPP) came third with 1,952 votes. Other parties recorded the following votes: NDP 1,404, PPA 2,72, ARP 1,951, APGA 1,912, ADC 1,103, and AC 512 votes.
As soon as Imoke was declared winner, representatives of opposition parties rejected the result, alleging allocation of votes by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Mr. Cletus Ogbang, the state deputy chairman of Action Congress (AC) said his party was prepared to challenge the result at the election petition tribunal, while the governorship candidate of the party in the 2007 polls, Mr. Emmanuel Ibeshi alleged that he was merely allocated the votes, as he did not participate in the re-run governorship election.
His words: 'Whoever allocated the votes is mischievous, AC did not participate in the re-run governorship election, and I wish to say that for my name to appear as a contestant is mischievous.'
At the state library complex where the results were declared, Daily Sun observed that there was confusion, as representatives of the opposition parties were unwilling to sign the result sheet.
An unidentified party representative said: 'INEC has again proved to the world that is not possible to have a credible election in Nigeria. We are prepared to go back to the tribunal, because for now, the judiciary seems to be our only hope.'