The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared Christopher Maikalangu of the All Progressives Congress winner of the Abuja Municipal Area Council chairmanship poll in the Federal Capital Territory.
Maikalangu, the incumbent chairman, was returned elected after polling 40,295 votes out of 62,861 valid votes cast in the election.
The AMAC Collation Officer, Andrew Abue, who announced the result at the collation centre, said the candidate of the African Democratic Congress secured 12,109 votes to place second, while the Peoples Democratic Party garnered 3,398 votes.
Abue stated that 2,336 votes were rejected, bringing the total number of votes cast to 65,197.
He added that while 837,338 voters were registered in AMAC, 65,676 were accredited for the exercise.
“Maikalangu of the APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of valid votes, is hereby declared the winner and returned elected,” he said.
A breakdown of results showed that Dantani Zanda of the PDP polled 3,398 votes; Iber Shimakaha of the Peoples Redemption Party scored 90 votes; and Simon Obinna of the Social Democratic Party secured 2,185 votes.
Madaki Robert of the Young Progressives Party obtained 421 votes, while Swani Buba of the Zenith Labour Party garnered 189 votes, among other contestants in the race.
Reacting to the outcome, the APC collation agent, Gambo Babale, described the conduct of the election and collation process as transparent and credible.
He commended INEC officials for what he termed a thorough exercise across polling units, ward collation centres and the AMAC collation centre.
Babale noted that the PDP won two ward councillorship seats in Karu and Karishi, which he said underscored the openness of the process.
Congratulating Maikalangu, he urged the chairman to justify the renewed mandate by delivering more dividends of democracy to residents of AMAC, adding that the result signalled positive prospects for the APC ahead of 2027.
Similarly, Abdullahi Ibrahim, the YPP ward collation agent, lauded the transparency of the collation and congratulated the winner.
Party agents of the ADC, APC, APGA, YPP and NNPP were present and appended their signatures to the result sheets at the collation centre.