Akwa Ibom State Governor, Udom Emmanuel, proved political pundits wrong on Saturday as he stunned his political godfather, Godswill Akpabio with a resounding win in governorship election.

The Governor, who was the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) defeated his closest rival and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Nsima Ekere.

According to the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Emmanuel polled a total of 519, 712 votes to emerge winner, while Ekere scored 171, 978 votes to emerge first runner-up.

The returning officer for the election, Professor Faraday Orumwese, who is also the Vice Chancellor of the Univeristy of Benin, declared Emmanuel winner of the gubernatorial election in Akwa Ibom State with the words, “I hereby certify that I was the returning officer of the Akwa Ibom state governorship election held on March, 10, 2019.

“Udom Emmanuel of the PDP having satisfied the requirements of the Law and scored the highest number of votes, I hereby declare Udom Emmanuel the winner and returned elected”.

There was milid drama at the collation centre as the APC collation agent, Samuel Akpan walked out on the process citing massive rigging of the elections by INEC in cahoots with the agents of the Akwa Ibom State Government, claiming his party mandated him not to accept the outcome of the result.

A total of 50 political parties through their agents signed the final result.