The presidential candidate of Labour Party (LP), Peter Obi, has coasted to victory in Cross River State.
The win sees Obi, widely considered to be the underdog of the election, defeat his fellow contenders of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu; Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar; and New Nigeria Peoples Pary (NNPP), Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The final results, which were announced at the presidential election collation centre in Cross River early Tuesday morning, indicated that Obi polled 179,917, besting Tinubu’s 130,520, Atiku’s 95,425, and Kwankwaso’s 1,644.
This makes Obi’s fourth state win after Nasarawa, Enugu and Lagos.
Triumph for the former Anambra State governor in the Cross River is significant for a number of reasons.
For one, Cross River is historically a PDP state, having seen three consecutive two-term governors emerging from the party since 1999, including the incumbent Governor Ben Ayade when he was elected in 2015 and re-elected in 2019.
However, Ayade’s defection to the APC in 2021 earned the ruling party a crucial South-South state after losing Edo State to the PDP and a recently defected Governor Godwin Obaseki, who won the state’s lone 2020 governorship poll.
In Cross River, the presidential poll recorded 1,691,642 registered voters.
There were 416,968 valid votes, while 24,608 were rejected, adding up to 441,576 total votes.