Smart Adeyemi defeats Melaye to win Kogi west senatorial seat

Smart Adeyemi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been declared the winner of the Kogi west senatorial election.

Olayinde Lawal, the returning officer of the election, declared Adeyemi winner at the end of the rerun on Saturday.

The APC candidate got 88,373 votes to defeat Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his closest challenger, who polled 62,133 votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Melaye winner in the first senatorial election but an appeal court ordered a rerun.

The rerun which held on November 16, however, ended inconclusively.

Although Adeyemi had polled 80,118 votes as against Melaye’s 59,548 votes, INEC said the margin of 20,570 votes between the two candidates was lower than the number of cancelled votes in 53 polling units.

Naijaparry had reported that Adeyemi also won the fresh rerun on Saturday.
Announcing the total results, Lawal said there were 161,979 accredited voters out of the 432,515 registered.

He said 152,033 votes were valid out of the 155,253 cast, while 3,250 were rejected.

Here is a breakdown of how people voted:

Lokoja LGA
PDP: 920
APC: 4,659

Mopamuro LGA
PDP: 09
APC: 309

Kogi (Koton Karfe)
PDP: 376
APC: 287

Ijumu LGA
PDP: 577
APC: 364

Yagba east LGA
PDP: 135
APC: 580

Kabba/Bunu
PDP: 546
APC: 1,901

Yagba west LGA
PDP: 22
APC: 165