Immediate past Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Chief Timipre Sylva, has been declared winner of the All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship primary for Bayelsa State for the November 11 governorship election in the state.
Sylva, a former governor who ruled the state, polled a total of 52, 061 votes to defeat five other aspirants including the 2019 governorship candidate of the party, Chief David Lyon, in a direct primary of the party.
With the result, Sylva will now square up with the incumbent governor, Senator Douye Diri, who had earlier in the week emerged the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) during the governorship election.
Declaring the results on Saturday at the APC state Secretariat in Yenagoa, the chairman of the APC Primary Election Committee for Bayelsa State, Maj. Gen. A. T. Jibrin (Rtd), said the exercise was conducted peacefully on Friday across the state.
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He announced the scores of other aspirants who contested in the primaries as Chief David Lyon – 1591 votes; Chief Festus Daumiebi – 557; Ongoebi Etebu Maureen – 1277 votes; Joshua Maciver – 2078 votes while Ogbomade Johnson had 584 votes.
In Kogi, the All Progressives Congress (APC) declared the Auditor-General for Local Government Affairs, Usman Ahmed Ododo, as winner of the April 14 primary election in the state.
According to the secretary of the primary election committee, Patrick Obahiagbon, Ododo, who is the anointed candidate of Governor Yahaya Bello, scored 78,704 votes to beat his rivals.
Shaibu Abubakar Audu got 763 votes, Stephen Ikani Ocheni scored 532 votes, Sanusi Ohaire polled 424 votes while Senator Smart Adeyemi got 311 votes.
The result was declared around 1.30am on Saturday.
According to the breakdown, 83,419 party members were accredited for the election.
However, the name of Muritala Yakubu Ajaka, one of the contestants, was missing from the result sheet.
This may not be unconnected with the earlier report, which quoted chairman of the APC screening committee, Mohammed Bello Matawale, to have said Ajaka – a member of the APC National Working Committee, was barred from the election.