The Imo State governor- Owelle Rochas Okorocha- will not be issued with INEC’s certificate of return for the Imo West Senatorial district even after been declared winner by Innocent Ibeabuchi, the returning officer for the February 23rd senatorial election in the district.
While there were no official explanations from INEC, it is believed that Ibeabuchi’s confession that he was “forced” to declare the governor winner in the election may have informed the exclusion of Okorocha’s name from the list.
Okorocha was the most notable omission even as the names of five other candidates from diverse parts of Nigeria did not make the list published by the electoral umpire on Monday.
This is even as INEC has declared that the PDP candidate- Emeka Ihedioha won the Imo guber elections which took place on Saturday, March 9th 2019. The former deputy speaker of the Federal House of Representative polled 273, 404 votes to defeat candidates from 69 other parties including the favoured candidate of the incumbent- Uche Nwosu of Action Alliance who scored 190, 364 votes and Senator Hope Uzodimma of the APC who garnered 96, 458 votes at the polls last Saturday.