Nigerian economist, banker, investor, philanthropist and politician, Alex Otti of the Labour Party (LP) has won the March 18 governorship election in Abia State, Nigeria.
He trounced his opponents, Okey Ahiwe of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and Enyinnaya Nwafor of the Young Peoples Party (YPP).
Otti scored 175,467, Ahiwe polled 88,529 while Nwafor got 28,972. The LP candidate also won 10 of the 17 local government areas in the state, PDP got six while the YPP got one.
The Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, Prof Nnenna Nnannaya-Oti declared Otti the winner on Wednesday evening at the resumption of the final collation of governorship election results in Umuahia, the Abia State capital over 48 hours after INEC suspended the exercise in the Southeast state.
Nnannaya-Oti, the Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Owerri said: “That Otti Alex Chioma of Labour Party having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner of the election.”
The last time the LP produced a governor in the last 20 years was when Olusegun Mimiko was declared as Ondo State governor in February 2009 by the court.
He later decamped to PDP and ruled to February 2017.