By Godwin Ebiboute Leloh
The Labour Party (LP) presidential candidate Peter Obi has established first lead in Rivers State after winning Port Harcourt City Local Government Area with a wide margin.
In Port Harcourt City, Obi polled 62,451 votes to win the council leaving the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Atiku Abubakar with 7,303 votes and All Progressives Congress (APC), Ahmed Bola Tinubu with 5,562.
With the results, Obi, who had won in only five local government areas, overtook Tinubu, who had led Rivers since the beginning of the collation with 12 local government areas.
With Obio-Akpor, Ahoada West and Degema being expected, Obi has so far polled 163, 033 votes to lead Tinubu, who polled 140,262 and Atiku, who got 82,109.
There was, however, uproar at the collation centre following a protest by some local government officials, who claimed the results were not properly collated.
They insisted that their results were mutilated and called on the commission to cancel the results.
According to them, results in wards 5, 11 and 18 were mutilated by Prof. Victoria Olumide, who is the Local Government Collation Officer.
