A United Nations election observer, Jim Oko, has described the just-concluded Anambra State governorship election as being “in line with international best practices.”

Oko, who serves as the National Coordinator of Nouvel Perspective International, a UN-accredited election observation organisation, made this known in an interview with PUNCH Online on Sunday at the INEC State Headquarters in Awka, shortly after Prof. Charles Chukwuma Soludo, candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), was declared winner of the poll.

The Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Edoba Omoregie, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Benin and a Professor of Constitutional Law and Governance, announced that Soludo satisfied all electoral requirements, having won in more than two-thirds of the local government areas across the state.

In his post-election assessment, Oko commended the conduct of the exercise, noting that the process met global democratic standards.

 “From all our team observed while moving around the state on Saturday up till now, it has been a very fulfilling experience for us as observers. Everything has been conducted in line with international best practices,” he said.

Oko added, “Having monitored elections across several countries, including the United States, which was a high-level exercise, we can conveniently state that everything here was as it should be, peacefully conducted, peacefully collated, peacefully announced, and peacefully accepted. So, we are very glad about this.”

According to final results released by INEC, Soludo polled 422,664 votes to emerge the winner, while Nicholas Ukachukwu of the All Progressives Congress (APC) came second with 99,445 votes.

Paul Chukwuma of the Young Progressives Party (YPP) placed third with 37,753 votes, followed by George Moghalu of the Labour Party (LP) who scored 10,576 votes. John Nwosu, candidate of the African Democratic Congress (ADC), backed by a political coalition, secured 8,208 votes.