About 2.2 million voters will on Saturday (today) go to the polling units in the 18 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Edo State to elect a successor to outgoing Governor Godwin Obaseki.
The voters are expected to elect one of 16 candidates to replace Obaseki, whose final four-year term expires in November.
But political pundits have argued that the contest is a three-horse race between Asuerinme Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Senator Monday Okpebholo of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Olumide Akpata of the Labour Party (LP).
The candidates jostling for the coveted position were originally 17 until Tom Iseghohi of the Action Alliance (AA) dropped out of the race recently.
But the AA will still be on the ballot papers today due to several reasons, including the late withdrawal.
To emerge as a governor-elect , a candidate must have the highest number of votes and at least 25 per cent of the votes in at least two-thirds (12) of the state’s 18 local government areas (LGAs).
It is instructive to note that Edo State comprises three senatorial districts as Edo South Senatorial District has the highest number of registered voters with 1,254,424 (55.76 per cent), while Edo North Senatorial District has the second highest with 629,397 (27.98 per cent) and Edo Central Senatorial District has 356,959 voters (16.27 per cent).
Incidentally, Ighodalo and Okpebholo hail from the Edo Central Senatorial district while Akpata is from Edo South Senatorial District.
 go to the polling units in the 18 Local Government Areas (LGAs) of Edo State to elect){kind=link}