INEC Returns Soludo in Anambra, Completing a Sweep of All 21 LGAs

AWKA — In the early hours of Sunday, 9 November 2025, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared Professor Chukwuma Charles Soludo winner of the Anambra governorship election. The returning officer, speaking at INEC’s state headquarters, said the All Progressives Grand Alliance candidate had “satisfied the requirements of the law.”

The numbers

Soludo received 422,664 votes. Nicholas Ukachukwu of the All Progressives Congress received 99,445. Fifteen other candidates were on the ballot. Channels Television and BBC Pidgin both reported a sweep of Anambra’s 21 local government areas. The result gives Soludo a second term through 2030.

The 8 November poll was watched across the East as a test of whether APGA could still hold the state that made it a household name. The margin answered that question more loudly than any manifesto.

What the night also recorded

In his first remarks after the declaration, Soludo confirmed the killing of a councillor during Saturday’s voting. The election was not a carnival. It was a contest held under the same security cloud that has hung over parts of the South-East for years.

A second term is not a blank cheque. Traders in Onitsha will measure it in the hours they lose to bad roads and sit-at-home rumours. Teachers will measure it in whether schools stay open. The vote said Anambra wanted continuity. The next four years will say whether continuity was the right word.

An election can return a man. Only the markets and the classrooms can return a state.

This paper will treat the result as fact, and the work as unfinished.