Senate president re-elected

The President of Senate, David Mark, trounced his political opponents in the National Assembly election in the Benue South Senatorial District. Mark defeated his closest opponent in the contest and candidate of the Action Congress of Nigeria, Maj.-Gen. Lawrence Onoja (retd.), with 147,923 to 79,433 votes. A total of 254,106 vote, were recorded, out of which 237,862 were declared valid and 16,53 votes voided in the zone with 603,315 registered voters. The Returning Officer for the area also referred to as the Zone ‘C’, Prof. Moses Adeyemo, declared Mark as the duly elected member representing the zone, having scored the highest votes and fulfilled all the requirements for the election. According to the figures released by Adeyemo at the collation centre located at the headquarters of Otukpo Local Government Area, the candidate of the All Nigeria Peoples Party, Sunday Agbo, got 7,761 while his counterpart from the Congress for Progressive Change, Mr. Iya Iya, polled 2, 740. A look at the figures released from the nine local government areas in the senatorial district showed that Mark defeated Onoja in all the council areas. The defeat was such that Onoja could not prevent Mark from beating him in his native Ohimini Local Government Area, where Mark scored 8,405 to Onoja’s 5,502. Speaking to journalists in his country home at Otukpo, Mark urged his opponent to accept the defeat in good faith and join his quest to attract development to the senatorial area. Onoja has, however, described the result as ‘fraudulent and unacceptable’. Onoja told our correspondent on the telephone on Sunday that he would contest the result. He said he would ask the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Attahiru Jega, to cancel the election or he would head to the tribunal. He said election did not hold in Ado Local Government Area while minors were allowed to vote in some places aside from the fact that voting was allowed to continue till 11am. The PDP also swept all the four House of Representatives seats in Agatu/Apa, Ohimini/Otupo, Oju/Obi and Ado/Ogbadibo/Okpoku. Out of the four results declared by INEC for Benue West Senatorial District Two, the incumbents, Mr. Emmanuel Jime and Hambe Iorwese, retained their seats as representatives for the Makurdi/Guma and Konshishia/Vandekiya Federal Constituencies respectively. However, the ACN captured Gboko/Takar and Buruku federal constituencies. Also, as at the time of fling this report, a former National Chairman of the PDP, Dr. Barnabas Gemade, was maintaining the lead against incumbent Senator Joseph Akaagerger of the ACN in the contest for Benue North East. Election in the Benue North West has been postponed to April 26, 2011 due to logistics challenges. By Fidelis Soriwei, Makurdi Courtesy Of: Punch