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The Cross River chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) failed in its bid to retain two Senate and six House of Representatives seats in the recently concluded National Assembly elections.
The opposition party in the state lost the Cross River Central and Cross River South to the All Progressives Congress but beat Governor Ben Ayade to the northern senatorial seat.
The PDP candidate for the northern senatorial district, Jarigbe Agom-Jarigbe, defeated Mr Ayade by 76,145 votes against Ayade’s 56,595 votes.
Similarly, Williams Jonah of the APC clinched the Central seat with 57,354 votes against Ewa Bassey of the PDP, who secured 53,463 votes in the polls.
The opposition party could only secure two seats out of the available eight seats in the House of Representatives.
While the PDP failed to return its candidate and incumbent for the Calabar South/Akpabuyo federal constituency, Ekpenyong Ayi-Essien, its candidate for the Calabar Municipality-Odukpani, Etta Mbora, also lost to the Labour Party candidate.
Mr Ayi-Essien, who has been in the House of Representatives for 20 years, came a distant third with 14,485 votes.
The Labour Party and APC candidates, Edem Aqua and Joseph Bassey, come second and first with 16,448 and 23,885 votes, respectively.
Similarly, PDP Mbora lost the Calabar Municipality-Odukpani seat with 19,584 votes to come third behind APC’s Idim Inok, who scored 21,066 and Labour Party’s Akiba Ekpenyong with 23,759 votes.
PDP also lost the Boki-Ikom seat they had held for 12 years through Chris Agibe to APC Abang Bissong. Attah Achinke, who sought to replace Agibe, was narrowingly beaten by the APC candidate with 23,158 votes against 22,745.
APC clinched the Akamkpa-Biase, Obubra-Etung, and Yakurr-Abi House of Representatives seats. However, PDP candidates for the Ogoja-Yala and Obanliku-Obudu/Bekwarra seats defeated the APC candidates and incumbents to clinch the two seats.
The incumbent for the Ogoja-Yala seat, Jude Ngaji lost to PDP’s Godwin Offiono by 32,964 against 36,642 votes; Idagbo Legor lost to Peter Akpanke of the PDP with 26,819 against 36,576 votes for the Obanliku-Obudu-Bekwarra seat.
The ruling party in Cross River completed the sweep with their victory in Obubra-Etung federal constituency seat, with Michael Irom, who polled 13,990 votes to beat PDP Gabriel Okpechi, who scored 12,620 votes.
(NAN)
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