The incumbent governor of Plateau state, Simon Lalong of the All Progressive Congress (APC) has been declared the winner of the 2019 gubernatorial election, Lalong polled 595,582 votes to defeat his challenger Sen. Jeremiah Useni of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who amassed 546,813 votes.
The declarations which come after long waiting as the initial election was declared inconclusive by the electoral umpire. Supplementary elections were conducted in 40 polling units of nine local government areas of the state.
Accordingly, result collated from the 40 PU supplementary elections revealed the incumbent Governor pooled 12,327 votes from the nine Local Govt. Areas as against his Rival Useni who scored 8,487 votes.
Prof. Richard Anande Kimbar, the Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture Makurdi, who was the returning officer while declaring the election result said; “Barrister Simon Bako Lalong of the APC, having satisfied the requirement of law and scored the highest number of votes, is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected.”
The summary of the result from across the 17 council areas of Plateau state indicated Lalong to be leading with a margin of 48,769 votes.
The incumbent strongholds were where he floored his opponent of the PDP were, Jos East, Mikan, Pankshin, Bokkos, Kanke, Kanam, and Jos North LGAs. He also defeated the PDP candidate in Shendam, Mangu, Wase and Qua’an Pan Local Government Areas.
Plateau state had a number of 2,480,455 registered voters. However, only 1,159,954 were valid votes and 16,188 as rejected votes.
Meanwhile, 24 political parties field in their candidates for the gubernatorial poll, subsequently, Jon Temlong of the Action Democratic Party score next to Useni with 4,670 votes.
