Samuel Ortom returned as Benue State governor for a second term as Inec declares him the winner

Governor Samuel Ortom of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has been declared the victor in the Benue State gubernatorial elections after the Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) pronounced him the winner with a margin of 89,318.

Like most of Nigeria's other states, Benue went to the polls on March 9 to elect a governor but the election was declared inconclusive due to malpractices in some constituencies. After the March 9 election, Inec said it could not declare a winner and proceeded to organise a supplementary election in the affected local government areas on Saturday March 23, which have now been concluded and collated.

This morning Inec announced the results from the polling units in the 22 local government areas of the state where the supplementary elections held. In a two horse race between Governor Ortom and Emmanuel Jime of the All Progressives Congress (APC), the incumbent was returned to office with 443,473 votes, compared with 345,155 for his nearest rival.

Before the rerun, Governor Ortom was leading Mr Jime by 81,264 votes and after the addition of the votes in the supplementary elections yesterday, the returning officer Professor Sabastine Maimako, declared him the winner. Before the supplementary election, Governor Ortom had scored 410,576 votes and had a lead of 81,554 votes over Mr Jime who had scored 329,022 votes.

Yesterday's  supplementary elections were held in 204 polling units in 22 local governments, which had a total of 121,299 registered voters. Governor Ortom, who was elected on the platform of the APC in 2015, defected to the PDP last year and will now serve as one of the party's governors until the expiration of his term in 2023.