Governor Douye Diri has won Southern Ijaw Local Government Area as the collation of results for the Bayelsa governorship election continued on Monday afternoon.

While the collation centre went on a break around 1:00 pm, the state Returning Officer Prof Faruq Kuta resumed collation at about 2:20 pm in Yenagoa, the Bayelsa capital.

Diri, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the poll, scored 24,685 votes in Southern Ijaw, beating his closest rival Timipre Sylva of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 18, 174 votes.

The Labour Party (LP) came third with 119 votes out of the 50,153 accredited voters.

The latest results mean Diri has clinched six of the eight local government areas of the oil-rich state while Sylva got two. Sylva won Brass Local Government Area polling 18,431 votes while PDP’s Diri got 12,602. APC also won in Nembe LGA having scored 22,248 votes. Diri had 4,556 there.

With the conclusion of collation of results, the coast is clear for Diri to win re-election, having maintained his lead over his main rival, Sylva. INEC is expected to formally declare the winner of the hotly-contested election this afternoon.