By winning the Oji River State Constituency, following the supplementary election in the constituency, held at the weekend, the Labour Party would now dominate the Enugu State House of Assembly to be inaugurated in June this year.

The candidate of the party for Oji River State Constituency, Osita Eze, wrapped up the winning streak of Labour Party in the state when he was declared winner of the supplementary election.

Eze was leading with over 300 votes in the March 18 governorship and state Assembly elections in Oji River, which had 2,489 registered voters, before results of Central School polling unit was cancelled. The election was, therefore, declared inconclusive, following the fact that the margin of lead was less than the number of Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) collected in the polling unit.

At the rescheduled poll, however, Eze garnered 108 votes, while the People Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Jeff Mbah, a serving member of the state Assembly, got 118 votes. The score of the PDP was, however, not enough to write off the over 300 votes earlier secured by the Labour Party candidate.

With Eze’s victory, the Labour Party has now won 14 out of the 24 seats in the state Assembly. The PDP trails with 10 seats.

Sources said, yesterday, that the upset by the Labour Party was the first time since 1999 an opposition political party will be winning such number of seats in the state Assembly. The only party that had ever won a seat in the state Assembly was the defunct All Peoples Party (APP) for Oji River in 1999.

Since then, the PDP had maintained the majority that had seen it winning all seats in the state Assembly.

Reacting to Eze’s victory, the governorship candidate of the party in the state, Chijioke Edeoga, said: “The journey to a new and prosperous Enugu has come to stay.”

Edeoga, who recently filed petition at the tribunal challenging the victory of the PDP’s governorship candidate, Dr. Peter Mbah, stated that there is no going back in the effort to recover his mandate, stressing that the people of the state voted Labour Party in the election.

He had asked supporters to keep faith with the leadership, explaining that what was witnessed in declaration of the PDP candidate by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was a temporary setback meant to strengthen the party. (The Guardian)

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