The governorship candidate of the Peoples Democratic patty (PDP) ,Dr Okezie IKpeazu has been declared winner of 2019 governorship election in Abia state amidst protests from parties. The Returning officer, Professor Benjamin Ozumba, who announced the result said Ikpeazu polled 261,127 to emerged the winner, whereas Uche Ogah of All Progressives Congress (APC) came second with 99,574 votes while Alex Otti came third with 66,366 votes.
Meanwhile, opposition parties have rejected the results it described as a sham and called for total cancellation of the results.
In a joint press Conference by the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) and APC governorship candidates in Umuahia on Sunday evening shortly after the announcement, the Opposition parties said the results were highly tampered with to favour the ruling party adding that even where some of them in the opposition had warned, INEC connived with security agencies to change the results.
They said: “In the interest of fairness,we had expected INEC not to have appointed this VC who sold the mandate of All Progressives Grand Alliance APGA in 2015 to have been appointed as Returning officer in 2019”
Meanwhile, the governor-elect, Dr Okezie IKpeazu, has congratulated Abians for the renewed hope promising to complete the projects started by his administration just as youths carried placards and protested against the results.
