By Henry Ibya, Makurdi
The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Mr. Terwase Uche as winner of the Guma 1 constituency of Benue State having polled a total 5,289 votes to defeat his closest rival, Geoffrey Jimin of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, who scored 4,134 votes.
Declaring the result of the keenly contested rerun election held on Saturday, returning officer for the exercise, Prof Julius Ikya of Joseph Saawuan Tarka University Makurdi, JOSTUM, said Terwase Uche of the APC, having polled the highest vote cast is hereby elected and returned.
According to him, “By the powers vested in me as the returning officer for this election, I hereby declare Terwase Uche of the All Progressives Congress, APC as elected” Prof Ikya announced.
Other contestants; Labour Party got 2,833 votes, with that of the All Progressives Grand Alliance, APGA having 121 while that of ADC scoring 72 votes.
Despite the tension that started building up in Benue State between political gladiators ahead of the Guma 1 state constituency election held at the weekend, elections were conducted peacefully.
NationsPride, during monitoring of the process, discovered that election materials arrived most of the polling units between 8:00- 9:00am.
Most of the electorate including John Shima, Joseph Tseaa and Terwase Ungwa,who spoke to NationsPride at different locations acknowledged that electorate were orderly in their conduct but, lamented low turnout of voters.
They commended INEC for organizing a peaceful election as well as improving on ICT deployed for the poll.
