Governor Biodun Oyebanji cruised to a second term in office after winning in all 16 local government areas of Ekiti State, according to results announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate polled 319,224 votes, dwarfing the 40,543 votes secured by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the 12,872 votes recorded by the African Democratic Congress (ADC).
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From the capital, Ado Ekiti, to rural councils such as Moba and Ekiti East, Mr Oyebanji maintained commanding leads, leaving the opposition without a single local government area.
A sweep across Ekiti
The APC’s strongest performance came from Ado Ekiti, where Mr Oyebanji secured 38,026 votes, nearly ten times the PDP’s 3,817 votes.
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Other major vote banks included Irepodun/Ifelodun (29,278), Ekiti West (28,258), Ikole (26,508) and Ekiti East (26,359).
Together, these five councils delivered nearly half of the governor’s statewide tally.
The only real contest
While the APC dominated most councils, Ikere LGA, where PDP candidate Wole Oluyede comes from, produced the closest contest of the election.
The margin of just 1,224 votes represented the narrowest gap between the two leading parties anywhere in the state. Yet even there, the governor emerged victorious.
Overall, three factors stand out from the results.
First, Mr Oyebanji won every local government area, preventing the opposition from establishing any geographical stronghold.
Second, the APC amassed overwhelming margins in the state’s biggest voting centres, particularly Ado Ekiti, Irepodun/Ifelodun and Ekiti West.
Third, the opposition vote was thinly spread across the state. The PDP crossed 3,000 votes in only a handful of councils and came close to victory only in Ikere.
With victories in all 16 councils and a margin of more than 278,000 votes over his closest rival, the results suggest that Mr Oyebanji’s re-election was not a competitive race.
Vote buying
Although INEC said the election was peacefully conducted, observers flagged inconsistencies in some electoral materials and reported incidents of vote-buying in parts of the state.
PREMIUM TIMES reports that voting commenced at 8.30 a.m. on Saturday in many of the 2,445polling un its in the state. At the end of voting, the results were announced for each polling unit.
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The results from polling units were collated across the state’s 177 wards before further collation was conducted in each of the 16 local government areas.
Ekiti has 1,059,360 registered voters, but only 1,028,929 of them who collected Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) were eligible to participate in the elections contested by 14 political parties. Less than half of the eligible voters voted on Saturday.
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