Wike’s anointed candidate, Siminialayi Fubara, declared Rivers governor-elect

Siminialayi Fubara of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared the winner of the Rivers State governorship election.

The state returning officer, Professor Akpofure Rim-Rukeh, announced the result late Monday night at the end of the two days collation at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) head Office in Port Harcourt.

The PDP candidate polled 302,614 votes to defeat his closet rival Tonye Cole of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who scored 95,274 votes while the Social Democratic Party (SDP) candidate, Senator Magnus Abe, and Labour Party (LP)’s Beatrice Itubo came a distant third and fourth with 46,981 and 22,224 votes respectively.

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Prof. Rim-Rukeh who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Petroleum Resources said a total of 496,852 voters were accredited for the March 18 governorship election out of the 3,537,190 registered voters in the state.

He said of the 494,604 total votes cast, 483,934 were valid while 10,670 were rejected votes.

Other political party agents at the state collation centre rejected the results, alleging the figures were allocated.

Fubara was anointed by the incumbent Governor Nyesom Wike, who is in the last weeks of his two-term of eight years.