Cross River Governor Ben Ayade Re-Elected

Professor Ben Ayade has been re-elected for another four years as the governor of Cross River State.

The Returning Officer, Professor Akii Ibhadode, declared Governor Ayade as the winner of the election on Monday at the end of the collation of results from all 18 local government areas of the state.

Announcing the results at the collation centre in Calabar, Professor Ibhadode said the governor who contested the election on the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled a total of 381,484 votes.

He added that the candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and that of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) polled 131,161 and 4,818 votes respectively.

Ayade, who won in all the 18 local government areas of the state, was re-elected with a winning margin of 250,323 votes.

The returning officer explained that the PDP candidate was returned elected having scored the highest number of votes and fulfilled the requirements of the law.

According to him, the number of registered voters is 1,486,026 and accredited voters is 542,115.

The don added that the total number of valid votes was 522,309 with rejected votes of 11,499 while the number of total votes cast was 533,808.