The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr David Lyon, as winner of the November 16 governorship election in Bayelsa State.
INEC’s returning office in the election, who is the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin, Professor Faraday Orunmuwese, announced that Lyon won the keenly contested election after polling a total of 352,552 votes to defeat his closest rival and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Duoye Diri, who scored 143,172 votes.
Residents of Bayelsa had taken to various polling units in their respective wards to cast their ballots in a bid to elect a new governor to succeed Mr Seriake Dickson who is about to complete his second term as governor of the state.
Governor Dickson had supported Mr Diri to succeed him in his bid to ensure the PDP continues to rule in Bayelsa, following the exit of the state’s former governor and present Minister of State for Petroleum Resources, Timipre Sylva, from office in 2012.
He was, however, unable to achieve this as Diri suffered defeat to his APC rival with a difference of over 180,000 votes.
Meanwhile, the election was characterised with reports of violence and ballot snatching in some areas while some wards were merged together as a result of flooding.
The collation of results of the election across the eight local government areas of the state began on Sunday afternoon and lasted until the early hours of Monday.
Of the first six LGAs whose results were collated, Lyon dominated the election with a difference of over 80,000 votes and extended the lead by an additional 100,000 votes after the results of the remaining two local governments were collated.
The Governor-elect won in six LGAs while his PDP rival claimed the remaining two LGAs.
Lyon won in Brass, Ekeremor, Nembe, Ogbia, Southern Ijaw, and Yenagoa LGAs while Diri won in Kolokuma/Opokuma and Sagbama LGAs.
Declaring the APC candidate as the winner, Professor Orunmuwese explained that a total of 505,884 votes were cast, out of which 499,551 were counted as valid votes.
He added that a total of 922,562 voters registered for the election but 517,883 voters were accredited.
Meanwhile, some leaders of the All Progressive Congress had visited former President Goodluck Jonathan in his his residence Bayelsa on Sunday.
On the delegation were Jigawa State Governor, Badaru Abubakar, Kebbi State Governor, Atiku Bagudu, Senior Special Assistant to the President on Niger Delta Affairs, Ita Enang, among others.
According to reports, the APC chieftains made the stop hours after the governorship election in the state.
It is still unclear if it was a courtesy or ‘Thank you visit’ as being suggested in some quarters.
Lyon in his reaction to the victory promised to make the state great again.
He made the pledge in a tweet on Monday, shortly before he was declared the winner of the keenly contested governorship election in Bayelsa.
In another tweet, Lyon thanked the people of the state for electing him and for their support during the exercise which held on Saturday.
The tweets came before and after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) returned the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Bayelsa as the winner of the election.
