Abia citizens divided on expectations from INEC in March gubernatorial election.

Chinwe Ugele, Umuahia

In a few hours, the final collation of the results for gubernatorial election conducted in Abia state will be announced and winner declared by the Independent National Electoral commission.

The electoral body on Monday announced suspension of collation of results from Obingwa Local Government area owing to reported cases of violence and hostage of its officials by thugs

The commission also ordered for a review of the BVAS used in the local government to ascertain the accredited voters.

While the reviews were going on, the state was thrown into an unprecedented level of apprehension with a clear palpable mood.

This made supporters of the two leading contending parties of the LP and PDP to claim victory even without being sure.

Three days after the state elections, the independent national electoral commission (INEC) announced that collation will be concluded Wednesday evening, 22nd March,2023 at the state collation centre.

Already, results from 16 Local Government areas had been collated for the gubernatorial election while results for House of Assembly election have been fully collated from the 24 state constituencies including those of Obingwa.

From the collated results from 16 LGA, the Labour Party’s candidate, Alex Otti is leading having polled 172,386 votes in 10 Local Governments while Peoples’ Democratic party’s candidate, Okey Ahiwe trails with 78,248 I in 5 local governments. All progressives Congress with 19,116 is in the third position with no local government to its name, while Young Progressive party with 16,533 has 1 local government.