The Imo State Governor, Hope Uzodimma, has been declared as the winner of the state governorship election held on Saturday by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The state Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Abayomi Fasina, who is also the Vice-Chancellor, Federal University, Oye-Ekiti, Ekiti State, announced the results on Sunday morning at INEC’s state collation centre in Owerri, the state capital.

He declared Uzodimma of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the election with 540,308, votes while Samuel Anyanwu of the Peoples Democratic Party came a distant second with a total of 71,503 votes.

Athan Achonu of the Labour Party polled 64,081 votes to come third in the election.

Anthony Ejiogu of the All Progressives Grand Alliance garnered 6,392 votes to come fourth and Jack Ogunewe of the Action Alliance came fifth with 5,756 votes.

The state’s Returning Officer said, “I, Prof. Abayomi Fasina, I was the Returning officer for the Imo state governorship election held on November 11, 2023. That the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Good Hope Uzodimma, having scored the highest number of votes and satisfied the requirements of the law, is hereby declared the winner of the election and returned elected.”

The results announced by INEC showed that Uzodimma swept all the 27 Local Government Areas of the state.

With this result, Uzodimma will be sworn – in for a second term in office on January 14, 2024.

Earlier, the State Agent of the LP, Callistus Ihejiagwa, was beaten and bundled out of the state Collation centre after he protested the results announced by the Local Government Areas Retuning officers.

He said that the results were manipulated in the favour of the APC candidate.

The state Agent of the PDP, Kissinger Ikeokwu, immediately left the collation centre.

However, PDP and LP had on Saturday night called for an outright cancelation of the poll.

The PDP candidate, Samuel Anyanwu, in a press conference, said that the election was rigged in the favour of Uzodimma.

Also, the deputy governorship candidate of the LP, Tony Nwulu, said that the security agents provided security for INEC staff and APC members to rig the poll.

He said that the position of his party was for INEC to cancel the election.