Benue South Re-run: Mark Floors Onjeh with 12,571 Margin Votes

Senator David Mark

The Independent National Election Commission, INEC, has declared former Senate President, David Mark, as the winner of the February 20 Benue South Senatorial District Re-run election.

Mark polled a total of 84, 192 while the first runner who is also his major challenger, Daniel Onjeh had 71, 621 votes.

Mark won in five local government areas while Onjeh won in four.

The result was declared this morning by the INEC Returning Officer, Professor Ishaku Enigi.

The Court of Appeal had earlier nullified the election of candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party PDP, Senator David Mark following the application brought by his All Progressive Candidate APC counterpart praying the court to declare the election null and void based on electoral malpractices which marred the election.

In the ruling, the court granted the prayers and ordered for a re-run to be take place within 90 days.

Meanwhile, the All Progressive Party has on its twitter congratulated the former President of the Senate on his victory at the poll despite the fact that its candidate rejected the results announced by the electoral umpire on the account that the number of cancelled votes put at 29,273 was higher than the margin of win, and also argued the rationale behind INEC's cancellation of votes predominantly at the APC strongholds. He concluded that the electoral body deliberately favoured the PDP candidate through the unjustifiable cancellation.