The Labour Party presidential candidate, Peter Obi, in a landslide, has won the presidential election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Imo State on Saturday.
According to the result announced by INEC in Imo State, Obi polled 352,904 votes to defeat his closest challengers, Bola Tinubu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Atiku Abubakar of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
Tinubu polled 66,171 to emerge second while Atiku scored 30,004 to come second. Rabiu Kwankwaso of the New Nigerian Peoples Party (NNPP) came fourth with 1,536 votes.
INEC disclosed that a total of 476,730 voters were accredited out of the 2,125,446 registered voters in the state. The electoral body also said that 459,261 were recorded as valid votes while 10,424 votes were rejected out of the total 469,685 cast.
TheNewsGuru.com (TNG) recalls that Obi contested in the Anambra State Governorship Election as a candidate for the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) party in 2003; but his opponent, Chris Ngige of the People’s Democratic Party, was declared winner by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
After nearly three years of litigation, Ngige’s victory was overturned by the Court of Appeal on 15 March 2006. Obi took office for governorship on 17 March 2006.
On 2 November 2006, he was impeached by the state house of assembly after seven months in office and was replaced the next day by Virginia Etiaba, his deputy, making her the first-ever female governor in Nigeria’s history.
Obi successfully challenged his impeachment and was re-instated as the governor on 9 February 2007 by the Court of Appeal sitting in Enugu. Etiaba handed power back to him after the court ruling.
He once again left office on 29 May 2007 following the General Elections, in which Andy Uba was declared the winner by the electoral body. Obi returned to the courts once more, this time contending that the four-year tenure he had won in the 2003 elections only started to run when he took office in March 2006.
On 14 June 2007, the Supreme Court of Nigeria upheld Obi’s contention and returned Obi to office. This brought to an abrupt end the tenure of Obi’s successor, Andy Uba whose 14 April 2007 election the Supreme Court nullified on the grounds that Obi’s four-year tenure should have remained undisturbed until March 2010.