The Abia State chapter of the Labour Party (LP) has declared Governor Alex Otti as its gubernatorial candidate for the 2027 governorship election after scoring a total of 368,230 votes during the party gubernatorial primaries held across the 184 wards in the state.
Speaking at the International Conference Centre, Umuahia, venue of the State Collation Centre on Saturday night, after being declared as the Governorship candidate by Hon. Acho Obioma, the National Organising Secretary of the Labour Party and Returning Officer of the primary elections in Abia State, Otti said that having been elected as candidate, the job of fighting to win elections has just started.
Governor Alex Otti Being presented with the certificate of return by the LP national secretary Hon. Acho Obioma
“I want to also call our attention to the fact that the job has just started. This crosses you to where you need to start fighting from.
“If you were not a candidate, then you can’t fight. But now that you are a candidate, you know, the election is a contention. You have to contend with yourself. Don’t kid yourself to say no fight. It’s a contention. At the end of the day, the best person must win. And it’s only one person that will win.
“So, a lot of our candidates have already contested for elections before, and won those elections. So, you are going to actually do better. If you look at the number of people that came out for the primaries, you will find out that it was twice the total number of votes that we got the last time.
“And this is just the Labour Party. There are a lot of people who don’t belong to parties who you need to now go out and talk to and convince them to either join the party or at least vote for members of the party,” Otti stated.
He thanked the election primary committee for conducting the election, the INEC monitoring team, and congratulated all the candidates that emerged.
“I would like to accept this nomination. And I accept it because we know that we still have a lot to collectively deliver, to Abians, and of course, Nigeria.
The State Chief Executive appreciated the manner in which the election was conducted. “There was no rancour, there was no violence anywhere.
“All the disagreements that could have happened have been dealt with even before today. And that’s why we had a very smooth primary across board.
“And I want to thank our leaders who sat down here in the last several weeks trying to resolve problems and disagreements between us that led to consensus candidates in virtually every constituency,” Otti stated.
Presenting the certificate of Return to the Governor, the National Secretary of the Labour Party, Hon. Acho Obioma said, “This is the beginning of the next phase of governorship in Abia State.”
He said that Abians are happy with the leadership of Otti and assured that he would be consolidating on his achievements.
Declaring the results earlier, the National Organising Secretary of the Labour Party and Returning Officer, Mrs Opara disclosed that the Governor polled 368,230 votes and informed those present that the election was by direct primaries.
Opara further noted that the primary elections were done in compliance with the party’s constitution and the INEC’s electoral guidelines and congratulated the Governor and other candidates that emerged.
Other candidates that emerged were, Senator Enyinnaya Abairibe, Senator Darlington Nwokocha and Chief David Ogba Onuoha for Abia South, Abia Central and Abia North senatorial zones respectively.
