Incumbent Governor Rochas Okorocha has won the keenly contested Saturday’s governorship election in Imo state.

With results from 26 of the state’s 27 local governments collated, Mr. Okorocha has clearly defeated his main challenger, the Peoples Democratic Party’s Emeka Ihedioha.

Mr. Okorocha has so far scored 371206 votes while Mr. Ihedioha, the deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, has 305,320 votes in the bag.

The APC candidates is ahead of Mr. Ihedioha by 66,086 votes.

The only outstanding local government – Oru East – has 65, 735 registered votes. So, even if all the voters there vote for Mr. Ihedioha, he still would not be able to catch up with Mr. Okorocha.

The Independent National Electoral Commission is expected to declare the governor winner in the next hour or so.

With his victory, the APC has succeeded in holding on to the only state it controls in Nigeria’s South-East geo-political zone. Three of the remaining states (Enugu, Abia and Ebonyi) in the region are controlled by the PDP while one (Anambra) has remained firmly in the grip of the All Progressives Grand Alliance for more than nine years.