Catholic Priest Wins Governorship Election In Benue

Rev Fr Hyacinth Alia, candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) in Benue State, has been declared the winner of the March 18 poll.

Alia, a priest of the Catholic Church, polled 473,933 votes to beat his closest rival and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Titus Uba, who scored 223,913.

The was announced by the INEC state Returning Officer, Prof Faruq Kuta, Vice Chancellor of the Federal University of Technology, Minna.

Alia’s main challenger, UBA, is the current speaker of the Benue State House of Assembly.

Out of the 23 local government areas in the state, Alia won in majority votes in 17 LGAs, while UBA won four.

The Labour Party won in one LGA.

A total of 22 LGAs were results were declared as of Monday.

INEC has scheduled governorship and State Assembly elections in Kwande LGA of the state, where the exercise was not held on Saturday, 18th March due to a printing error discovered on the ballot sheets.

With the victory, APC regained the state lost to the PDP when the outgoing governor, Samuel Ortom of the PDP was elected.