In the just concluded governorship election in Edo State, the Candidate of the Labour Party in the election and former President of the Nigerian Bar Association, Olumide Akpata, SAN failed to win any of the 4,519 polling units in Edo State, analysis by Podium Reporters reveal.
Yesterday night, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) announced Monday Okpebholo, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner of the 2024 Edo state governorship election.
Okpebholo, a senator, won the election with 291,667 votes to defeat his closest rival, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who polled 247,274 votes. Olumide Akpata, candidate of the Labour Party (LP), came a distant third with 22,763 votes.
The 22,763 votes garnered by the Labour Party candidate however came in piecemeals as he could not win any of the 4,519 polling units in the state neither did the Labour Party win any ward.
As a matter of fact, the Candidate of the Labour Party himself lost his polling unit to the PDP. The result in Akpata’s Polling Unit 11 located in Ward 06 of Oredo LGA shows that the PDP scored 41 votes, the APC garnered 19 votes while Akpata could only secure 32 votes for LP to finish second.
The very abysmal performance of the Labour Party in Edo State was a shock to many of the party’s supporters and Obidients who thought the Edo governorship election was a three-horse race between the PDP, APC and the Labour Party. The Labour Party held a large campaign grand finale in Edo State with Mr. Peter Obi in attendance to shore support for Akpata and LP. Unfortunately, these efforts could not deliver a single polling unit for the Labour Party.