Adeyemi defeats Melaye, wins Kogi west senatorial rerun

Smart Adeyemi, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has defeated his Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) counterpart, Senator Dino Melaye in a keenly contested re-run election that ended Saturday night.

Olayinde Lawal, the returning officer of the election, declared Adeyemi winner at the end of the supplementary election.

The APC candidate got 88,373 votes to defeat Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), his closest challenger, who polled 62,133 votes.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared the November 16 rerun in Kogi west inconclusive, announcing that the number of cancelled votes was higher than the margin between the PDP and APC candidates.

During the re-run, although Melaye led with a small margin in Koton Karfe and Ijumu, where both men hail from, his loss in the other LGAs affected his stand in the election.