The ruling party candidate has won a key state governor’s election in Nigeria’s oil-producing region, officials said Friday, in a vote seen as a major test ahead of April’s nationwide polls.
Officials announced that Emmanuel Uduaghan of the Peoples Democratic Party won the Delta state governor’s vote on Thursday, which an electoral commission spokesman said appeared to be fair despite reports of violence.
“Dr Emmanuel E. Uduaghan of PDP, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes, is hereby declared the winner,” electoral commission official Gabriel Ada told a news conference.
The election in Delta state came after a court invalidated the result of the 2007 vote following fraud allegations and ordered a re-run just months before a new ballot. Uduaghan had been governor before the court ruling deposed him.
His main challenger in the re-run, Great Ogboru of the Democratic People’s Party, finished with 138,244 votes compared to Uduaghan’s 275,253, Ada said.
Ogboru earlier alleged supporters were barred from voting and some of his party’s poll agents were arrested.
“People were shooting sporadically into the air and chasing people all over the place,” Ogboru told reporters.
Delta state is located in the main oil-producing Niger Delta region, which has long been hit by unrest involving criminal gangs and militants claiming to be fighting for a fairer distribution of oil revenue.
Election rigging has also frequently occurred there.
Nigerian President Goodluck Jonathan issued a statement shortly after results were announced congratulating Uduaghan and praising the electoral commission for its handling of the vote.
The commission “has shown by its performance in Delta state that Nigeria is well on its way to achieving very credible general elections in April,” the statement said.
A spokesman for electoral commission head Attahiru Jega said the vote provided lessons for April’s presidential, legislative and state polls.
The recently installed electoral commission faces huge challenges in organising general elections in Africa’s most populous nation, where votes have been repeatedly marred by rigging and violence.
“The election on the whole was fair despite isolated incidents,” said Jega spokesman Kayode Robert Idowu.
“The commission is not pretending that the election was crisis-free. The chairman made clear there were cases of violence, there were cases of ballot snatching … but on the whole, the election was credible.”
Police reported two arrests in connection with attempts to steal ballot boxes. Other suspected ballot thieves who were armed managed to escape, said Delta state police spokesman Charles Muka.
Authorities deployed massive security for the vote, which occurred after a series of attacks in recent weeks, including bomb blasts in the capital Abuja and the central city of Jos.
Some 1.5 million people were eligible to cast ballots.
Former vice president Atiku Abubakar, who is challenging Jonathan for the ruling party’s nomination for the April presidential election, also congratulated Uduaghan.
Support from governors will be key in the tightly fought ruling party primary set for January 13.