30th March, 2015
General Muhammadu Buhari, presidential candidate of the All Progressives Congress has been declared the winner of the election in Ondo State.
He scored 299,889 votes to President Goodluck Jonathan’s 251,368 votes.
The victory is especially significant for the APC candidate as Governor Olusegun Mimiko, chairman of the Goodluck-Sambo re-election campaign in the western part of Nigeria, is the governor of this western state.
He had served as the arrow head of the campaign, organising, mobilising some Yoruba leaders to endorse the Jonathan ticket, around the vague promise that Jonathan would implement the decisions of the 2014 National Conference, which he claimed would enhance Yoruba quest for true federalism.
In October 2012, Mimiko won the state in his own re-election bid on the platform of the Labour Party, edging the Action Congress to the third position behind the Peoples Democratic Party, which came second.
However, in a not-too-surprising move, the medical doctor turned politician abandoned the Labour Party and joined the Peoples Democratic Party and joined the PDP last October.
Members of the state house of assembly and commissioner decamped with him.
His political fortunes had however dwindled since then, culminating in the defection last week to the APC, by his deputy, Alhaji Alli Olanusi.
Buhari’s victory was not the only bounty the opposition harvested from the state.
The APC also won two senatorial seats declared so far by INEC. They are Ondo North and Ondo central.
The APC won the Ondo North with 102,843 votes. PDP polled 76,751 votes. In Ondo central. Mimiko’s own constituency, the APC also clinched it with 106, 747 votes. PDP trailed with 77, 296.
The result of the Ondo south senatorial district is being awaited.