RipplesMetrics: What to know about past Ekiti Governorship elections, as voters go to poll today

Today, June 18, 2022, about 734,746 registered voters will elect a new Governor to pilot the affairs of Ekiti State for the next four years.

This will be 7th time since 1999, and since the creation of the state in 1996, that an election would be held.

Ekiti State election schedule differs from other States due to a rerun election following the removal of Governor Segun Oni after 41 months by an appeal court in 2009.

In other words, Ekiti is in the off season election cycle because the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was forced to conduct another election which brought in Dr Kayode Fayemi in 2010.

List of Past Governors

Since 1999, Ekiti State has welcomed nine governors under three different political parties.

Otunba Niyi Adebayo, who is the first, came into power on 29 May, 1999 and lasted till 29 May, 2003 under the platform of Alliance for Democracy party (AD).

He was succeeded by Ayo Fayose who governed between 29 May, 2003 and 19 October, 2006. He was of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The third is General Tunji Olurin (Rtd) who was in office from 19 October, 2006 – 27 April, 2007. He was also of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and came in after a state of emergency was declared.

Chief Tope Ademiluyi became Acting Governor between 27 April, 2007 and 29 May 2007 under the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Engr Segun Oni followed from 29 May, 2007 to 17 Feb, 2009. He was also of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and was removed by an appeal court.

Rt. Hon. Tunji Odeyemi stepped in as acting Governor, the second in such capacity in less than two years. He piloted the affairs of the state from 17 February, 2009 – 6 May, 2009 as Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate after Segun Oni’s election was cancelled.

Dr. John Kayode Fayemi won the rerun election and was in office from 16 Oct, 2010 – 16 Oct, 2014 as All Progressive Congress (APC) candidate.

However, he lost to Ayodele Fayose who was head from 16 Oct, 2014 – 16 Oct, 2018 for Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

Dr John Kayode Fayemi returned to win the next election to begin his second tenure from 15 July, 2018 and will be handing over in October 2022.

Voting pattern from the last two elections

It is clear from the analysis above that Ekiti voters are difficult to predict.

With two acting governors, two reruns, and three different political parties, this year’s election is set to be very intriguing.

2014 election

The 2014 Ekiti State gubernatorial election occurred on June 21, 2014, with 346,666 votes counted.

PDP nominee, Ayo Fayose, won the election, defeating Kayode Fayemi of the APC.

Fayose polled 203,090 while Fayemi garnered 120,433 and Bamidele Michael Opeyemi of labour party recorded 18,135 votes.

2018 election

With Fayose completing his tenure, Fayemi had the chance to return to the state house.
He defeated Kolapo Olushola, the PDP candidate.

The total number of registered voters in the state was 909,585 while 405,861 voters were accredited. Total number of votes cast was 403,451, while number of valid votes was 384,594. Rejected votes were 18,857.

Read also: Guber poll: INEC warns officials on unethical conduct in Ekiti

Fayemi recorded 197,462 votes, Kolapo 177,927 while other candidates combined polled 9,205.

Numbers from this year’s election that matter

According to INEC there are a total of 988,923 registered voters in Ekiti state.

Out of this total, 734,746 persons have collected their Permanent Voters Card for the election.

The election will hold in 16 LGAs, with 22,244 polling units to be manned by 10,000 adhoc staff for the of conduct election.

There will also be 46 registration areas centers and 61 super registration area centers.

INEC also announced that it will be deploying the Bimodal Voters Accreditation System (BVAS) for the Ekiti State Governorship Election.

Where the votes can be lost and won

There are 16 Local Government Areas in Ekiti State. At the last elections, the major battle by the two leading parties, APC and PDP, was fought in Ado.

The returned votes for Ado, for both major parties, stood at 32,810 for APC and 28,111 for PDP.

Ikere and Ikole are also going to be critical for who becomes the next governor.

Breakdown of residents who voted in 2018 is stated below:

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