TELL Magazine

Abayomi Oyebanji, candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC has been declared winner of the Saturday June 18, governorship election in Ekiti State. He scored 187,057 votes to defeat his closest rival Segun Oni, a former governor of the state who ran on the platform of the Social Democratic Party, SDP who scored 82,211 votes and Bisi Kolawole of the acclaimed major opposition party in the state, the People’s Democratic Party, PDP who came third with 67,457 votes.

Oyebanji, with his victory at the polls, will take over from Governor Kayode Fayemi whose statutory second term ends this year. Fayemi who is the chairman of the Nigerian Governors’ Forum is also of the APC. What that means is that the APC will continue to run the affairs of the state through Oyebanji.

Segun Oni obviously pulled more weight among the candidates coming second though he ran on the platform of a little known party in the state. He was apparently frustrated out of the PDP because leaders like Ayodele Fayose, a former governor of the state who insisted on influencing the emergence of Kolawole at the primary in the state. The results indicate that had Oni ran on the PDP platform he would likely have created an upset. Or at least, a combination of his popularity and the reach of the PDP would have given the APC a run for its money, power of incumbency notwithstanding.