Jonathan leads Buhari in Benue

President Goodluck Jonathan and Peoples Democratic Party candidate is leading in five officially-declared local government results for the presidential election in Benue State.

After a long wait since Saturday when the election was concluded in some parts of the state, the results started trickling in from around 3pm on Sunday.

The local governments declared so far in favour of Jonathan are Ogbadibo, Ado, Ohimini, Okpokwu and Agatu.

There are 23 local government areas in the state.

The five declared so far are in the Senatorial District of the Senate President, David Mark. There are nine local governments in the zone.

In the results submitted to the state Collation Officer, Prof. Hayward Mafuyai, in Makurdi, the state capital, Jonathan polled 6,937 votes in Ogbadibo.

His closest rival and All Progressives Congress candidate, Muhammadu Buhari, polled 6,259 in what turned out to be a tight race.

There were a total of 15,530 accredited voters out of a registered voter list of 53,253 in Ogbadibo.

In Ado, Jonathan scored 7,382 votes, while Buhari polled 2,328.

The PDP candidate also won in Ohimini with 5,909 votes, while the APC got 4,734 votes.

In Okpokwu, where the Interior Minister, Mr. Abba Moro, comes from, the President won by 12,103 votes, the highest so far among the five declared officially.

Buhari received 4,757 votes in Moro’s Local Government.

Similarly, the PDP won in Agatu by 9,555 votes to the APC’s 3,627.

Official results for the Senate and House of Representatives were yet to be released due to delayed collation at the respective senatorial and constituency headquarters.

Meanwhile, the APC has alleged that the PDP is making moves to manipulate the results of the Presidential and National Assembly elections in the Benue North-East Senatorial District Zone (A), where results announced at the ward levels have indicated victory for the APC across the district.

In a statement by the Ortom/Abounu Governorship Campaign Organisation, the APC alleged that the PDP was strategising to delay the results from reaching the local government headquarters.

The party named Katsina-Ala, Ukum and Logo as some of the areas the PDP was planning to delay the results.

The statement read in part, “Information reaching the Ortom/Abounu Governorship Campaign Organisation indicates that the strategy includes preventing results from the wards from reaching collation centres at local government headquarters, particularly in Katsina-Ala, Ukum, and Logo.”

One of our correspondents made efforts to get the reaction of the PDP in the state and the Office of the State Governor, Mr. Gabriel Suswam, without success.

Calls and text messages made to the PDP’s spokesman Godwin Ayigher were not replied.

The Media Adviser to the governor, Mr. Cletus Akwaya, also did not respond to text messages.

Jonathan leads Buhari in Benue