Unofficial results trickling in show that Mr. Rotimi Akeredolu of the national ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) may emerge victorious.
He is reported to have scored 45,609 votes from what had been released so far and he is trailed by People’s Democratic Party (PDP) with 42,987 votes.
Alliance for Democracy (AD) got 18,679, and the Social Democratic Party (SDP) 3,458.
The figures represent 39 per cent of the collated results so far
The results are from some wards of the 13 local governments, including Akoko north East, Akoko southeast, Akoko south west, Owo and Akure North.
Others are Ifedore, Akoko Northwest, Akure South, Ose, Idanre, Ile Oluji, Ese Odo and Okeigbo/Ile Oluji.
Earlier on Saturday, there was mild drama in Ondo town as the card reader deployed for the governorship election rejected Gov. Olusegun Mimiko’s thumbprint when he wanted to vote at his Ward 7, Unit 20 Polling Unit in Ondo West Local Government Area.
Mimiko had to fill the incident form before he was finally allowed to cast his vote at about 12 noon.
Speaking shortly after casting his vote, the governor said he would resist any attempt to manipulate the election in favour of any political party.
“Ondo people will not allow any form of rigging or manipulation through the card reader or any other form,” he said.
No fewer than 1,280,580 voters with Permanent Voter Cards would decide who the governor would be out of the 28 contestants in Saturday’s governorship election.
Although 1,659,186 voters were registered for the election, 378,606 did not turn up to collect their PVCs.
Among the major contestants are Mr Eyitayo Jegede of the PDP, Chief Rotimi Akeredolu of the APC, Dr Olu Agunloye of the Social Democratic Party and Olusola Oke of the Alliance for Democracy.
The card reader had also failed to function at Ipkeshi, near Auchi, during the governorship election in Edo.
The device could not function in Ward 11 and 12 at Okhueromoh Primary School, Ipkeshi, when the INEC official attempted to accredit voters for the poll.
INEC had acknowledged the failure of its card reader machines for the conduct of the 2015 Presidential and National Assembly elections.
INEC had said it was compelled to result to manual accreditation in areas where the machine failed woefully. (NAN)