By Damola Emmanuel
Governor Godwin Obaseki, candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, in Saturday’s governorship election in Edo State, has earned an emphatic return ticket to the Government House in Benin for another four years.
He beat Pastor Osagie Ize-Iyamu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, scoring 307,955 votes against the latter’s 223, 619.
Results collated and declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, showed Governor Obaseki cruising past the APC gladiator with an unassailable margin.
The returning officer declared Obaseki winner and duly elected at exactly 2.45 p.m. local time.
Local and international monitors have confirmed the polls as largely violence-free as voters performed their civic responsibility in a largely rancor-free atmosphere on Saturday.
There was, however, a little slur on Sunday’s declaration of results when agents of all the parties that contested the election signed the INEC result sheets but the APC agent refused to sign, saying: “I have the instruction of my party not to sign.”
Scores of the two main gladiators in the 18 local government areas shortly.