Rotimi Akeredolu has been reelected as Governor of Ondo State, having won 15 of the 18 local governments to defeat his closest rivalry, Eyitayo Jegede of Peoples Democratic Party, who won three.
Akeredolu, the All Progressives Congress candidate, got 292,830 votes, while Jegede and Agboola of the Zenith Labour Party came second and third in the election with 195,791 and 69,127 votes, respectively, Channels TV reports.
Consequently, the Chief Returning Officer for the election, Professor Idowu Olayinka, returned Akeredolu as the governor-elect on Sunday at the office of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), in Akure, which doubles as the final collation centre.
“Having satisfied the requirement of the law and scored the highest number of votes, I hereby declare Oluwarotimi Odunayo Akeredolu of the APC as the winner, and he is hereby returned elected,” Channels TV quoted Professor Olayinka to have said.
The poll, which held on Saturday, Oct. 10, was the second major election to be conducted since the outbreak of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic.
Eleven contenders pulled out of the race in favour of other candidates just in the final days of the campaign with the trio of Akeredolu, Jegede and Ajayi emerging as the leading contenders.
Governor Akeredolu’s first tenure as governor will expire on February 23, 2021, with his victory, he is on course to govern the state for another four years.