By Amos Aar
HON. PETER Terwase Uche, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Guma 1 State Constituency bye-election has clinched the seat on Saturday.
Results announced at the collation centre in Daudu at about 9pm but yet to be declared officially by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) indicated that Uche polled 5,063 to floor his closest rival, Jimin Geoffrey, of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 3,872 while Labour Party (LP) came last with 1,957.
The Guma 1 State Constituency seat became vacant when Hon. Yanmar Ortese, who occupied it resigned last year to take appointment as Benue State Commissioner for Health and Human Services.
Our correspondent, who monitored the election, reported that accreditation commenced as early as 8am under a calm atmosphere while Bimodal Voter Accreditation System (BIVAS) was used without hitches in all the polling units visited including Uikpam and Daudu areas.
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The Commissioner for Health and Human Services, Dr Yanmar Ortese, who cast his vote at the polling unit 006, Akpe Primary School in Mbabai council ward, also confirmed in an interview with newsmen that the election was peaceful all over the six council wards of the Guma 1 State Constituency.
“It has been peaceful and it’s always peaceful”, Yanmar confirmed.
Recall that in the delegates primary election, Governor Hyacinth Alia had backed his aide, Maurice Orwough, as APC’s flagbearer but was rejected by supporters of the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), George Akume, who picked Peter Uche as their candidate.
Although the SGF’s candidate finally emerged as APC’s candidate, a chieftain of the party who preferred anonymity confided in National Record that Governor Alia shunned Uche and secretly sponsored a candidate of the Labour party (LP), Hon. Pastor Peters China, who lost the race.
Apart from his grievance over the inability to feature his preferred candidate for the bye-election, the source also alleged that Alia is preparing to dump APC for LP owing to the rift between him and his supposed godfather, George Akume, which may truncate his second term aspiration.
