Okowa won Delta guber election, SSG tells tribunal

SECRETARY to the Delta State Government, Mr. Festus Ovie Agas yesterday took to the witness box at the ongoing Delta State Governorship election petition Tribunal sitting in Asaba as Governor Ifeanyi Okowa formally opened his defence in the case.

Okowa’s counsel, Mr. Alex Izyon (SAN), told the tribunal that going by the election results from the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) records, Okowa of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), scored the highest number of valid votes cast in the election to emerge the winner but Olorogun O’tega Emerhor of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Chief Great Ogboru of the Labour Party are challenging his victory.

The scribe told the court that PDP’s victory in the election did not come to him as a surprise considering the fact that the party had always won elections in the state since 1999. He further stated that the victory of Okowa at the polls is a further confirmation of PDP dominance in Delta political space, as PDP won 23 seats out of the 29 seats of the state House of Assembly.

He explained that he cast his vote at Oteri town, in unit 1 of word 2/6 of Ughelli North Local Council, adding that the political parties had their agents at the polling units and followed the due process of INEC accreditation which culminated into his voting in the presence of all security agents deployed to man the polls.