Aggrieved candidates of seven political parties in Kaduna State under the aegis of the Kaduna State Rescue and Rebuild Gubernatorial Candidates Forum have rejected the results declared by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in last Saturday’s governorship and House of Assembly elections.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Senator Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the governorship election.
Declaring the results, the Returning Officer, Prof Lawal Suleiman Bilbis, said Sani polled 730,002 votes to defeat his closest rival, Hon Mohammed Isa Ashiru, of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who scored 719,196 votes.
But addressing a joint press conference in Kaduna yesterday, the seven governorship candidates of the Young Progressives Party (YPP), Allied Peoples Movement (APM), Action Peoples Party (APP), National Rescue Movement (NRM), Action Alliance (AA), All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) and Action Democratic Party (ADP) alleged that there was massive cancellation of votes in most local government areas.
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Chairman of the forum, Ambassador Sanin Yaya, who is the governorship candidate of YPP, said they would engage legal means to fight to a logical conclusion for the “right thing” to be done by INEC.
He said INEC must cancel the elections and organise fresh elections where a level-playing field should be given to all the contenders.
He further said, “We wish to address you all and other loyal voters in the state on the purported election result declared by INEC which is unacceptable to us and many as well and we call on INEC to do the needful on the purported result announced, which declared the APC candidate as winner in the just concluded election.
“We wish to refer you to the Electoral Act 2022 which states that, ‘Where the margin of lead between the two leading candidates is less than the total number of Permanent Voters Cards (PVC’s) collected in the polling unit(s) where election was held or was canceled in line with Sections 24 (2& 3), 47 (3) and 51(2) of the Electoral Act 2022, the Returning Officer shall decline to make a return until polls have taken place in the affected Polling Unit(s) and the results incorporated into new form EC8D and subsequently recorded into form EC8E for declaration and return.’
“Many polling units in all the local governments’ Form EC40G were filled by Returning Officers and the number of registered voters who collected their PVC in these polling units are more than the margin of lead/win in the governorship election in Kaduna State.
“Therefore, our position is that INEC has been compromised by the ruling party despite the fact that they are an umpire that is entrusted to hold a free, fair and credible election.”
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