Delta Central bye-election PDP’s Aguariavwodo in early lead

FROM some tallied results of Saturday’s bye-election in Delta Central senatorial district, Delta state, Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate, Chief Emmanuel Aguariavwodo, seemed to have coasted to an early lead in Sapele, Ughelli South, Ughelli North, Ethiope-East and Udu Local Government Areas.

The Democratic People Party, DPP, candidate, Chief Ede Dafinone, was understood to be leading in Okpe Local Government, but it was believed he was going to lose the senatorial

election with PDP’s performance in Ethiope-West and Uvwie .

The former senator, the late Senator Pius Ewherido, won the seat in 2011 on DPP platform and his death, June 30, occasioned the bye-election

Former Minister of State for Education, Olorogun Kenneth Gbagi, told Sunday Vanguard that PDP trounced the other parties in all the units in his ward and in the entire Ughelli South Local Government.

“In Unit 2, Jeremi Ward 2, we scored 467, the other parties scored zero. We, the leaders, told them clearly who to vote for and they did not make a mistake about it. It is 100 per cent,” he said.

Chairman of the Delta State PDP Campaign Council and Commissioner for Housing, Chief Paulinus Akpeki, was said to have turned the tide against the DPP in Sapele, but the results were not confirmed at press time.

Security

Akpeki reportedly lost three out of the 17 units results that were counted as at 4.00 pm.

However, the state chairman of DPP, Chief Tony Ezeagwu, in a statement, indicating that his party might have lost the election, said, “Today, (yesterday), the Urhobo people were violently denied the collective right to choose a senator of their own.”

“The proposed election to elect a senator is now emerging as a complete sham which we cannot associate with under any guise. The scale of impunity and violence by the PDP, thugs/cultists and ‘security agents’ is just unimaginable.

“The involvement of state security apparatuses is particularly questionable. We are at a loss why and how such violence and external interference have to be brought into Urhobo in the name of election. We dissociate ourselves from the so-called election”.

Our reporters, who covered the bye-election conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Delta Central senatorial district, reported that it was characterized by late arrival of materials, dismal turnout of voters and threatening presence of security men, particularly soldiers, who barricaded roads.

At some of the polling units, accreditation had not been done as at 2.00 pm, while in some others, where voting materials arrived early, some people voted at about 12.30 pm and returned home.

Our reporters who went round the eight local governments in the senatorial district, namely, Uvwie, Udu, Sapele, Okpe, Ughelli South, Ughelli North, Ethiope- West and Ethiope –East, reported that voters, who turned out at the polling centres without their voter’s cards, were turned back by electoral officers.