Celebrations by the camp of Chief Willie Obiano of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) as winner of last weekend’s governorship election in Anambra State, have been cut short by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), which refused to declare him the next Governor of the state.

According to the Chief Returning Officer, Prof. James Epoke, Vice Chancellor of the University of Calabar, “Because the difference between the winner and the runner-up is lower than the total number of cancelled votes, we cannot return the winner. The commission will arrange, not a rerun but only supplementary election in the areas where election was cancelled."

Consistent with reports published since Saturday night by News Express, Epoke had confirmed Obiano as winner of the election. Obiano, according to him, scored 174,710 votes to win the election.

He was followed by Comrade Tony Nwoye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 94,956 votes, while Senator Chris Ngige of the All Progressives Congress (APC), came third with 92,300 votes.

Epoke explained that whereas the difference between Obiano and Nwoye is less than 95,000 votes while the cancelled votes exceeded 100,000. He said that the supplementary election, the date of which is yet to be fixed, would involve all the 23 candidates who contested in last weekend’s election.

Epoke disclosed that 1,763,751 registered for the election, 451,856 were accredited while total number of votes cast was 429,449, out of which 413,003 votes were valid and 16,544 rejected.

•Photo shows Anambra Resident Electoral Commissioner, Prof. Chukwuemeka Onukaogu.