Bassey Otu, the Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Cross River State, has been declared the governor-elect by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Professor Teddy Charles, the State Returning Officer, said Otu polled a total of 258,619 votes to defeat Sandy Onor, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored a total of 179,636 votes.
Otu, who won in 15 of the 18 local government areas of the state became the first governor of the state to be elected on the platform of a different party outside PDP which had governed the state since the return of democracy in 1999.
The previous governors of the state, Donald Duke, Liyel Imoke and incumbent Ben Ayade were all elected for two terms of eight years on the platform of the PDP. But Ayade defected to the APC in 2021.
