Benue State Governor, Samuel Ortom (PDP), has lost the election into the Benue Northwest Senatorial seat to his former aide, Titus Zam of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Declaring the result, the Returning Officer, Rufus Shaa’ato, said Mr Zam polled 143,151 votes to beat Mr Ortom, who polled 106,882 votes, while Mark Gbillah of the Labour Party (LP) polled 51,950 votes.

Mr Shaa’ato stated that Mr Zam was declared the winner, having satisfied the electoral law requirements.

Mr Zam was Mr Ortom’s Special Adviser on Bureau for Local Government and Chieftaincy Affairs from 2015 to 2017.

Relatedly, Mr Shaa’ato declared Mr Dickson Tarkighir of APC winner of the Makurdi/Guma Federal Constituency election.

The returning officer, who gave the breakdown, said as Mr Tarkighir polled 49,511 votes to beat Bem Mzondu (PDP), who polled 43,803 and Jerry Agber of LP, who polled 23,414 votes, respectively.

Reacting to his victory, Mr Zam said the era of imposing non-performing candidates on the masses was over, stressing that the people were now politically conscious and would vote out ineffective representatives.

(NAN)