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The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday declared the governorship election in Kano State as inconclusive after compiling results from the 44 local government areas of the state.
The compiled results showed that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Abba Kabir Yusuf had 1,014,474 votes, while the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Abdullahi Ganduje scored 987,819 votes. A total of 2,155,128 votes were recorded as valid while 49,761 were rejected.
The Returning officer of the gubernatorial poll in the state, Prof B. B Shehu, said the election was declared inconclusive in accordance with section 26 of the INEC Act because the number of rejected vote exceeded the number of votes margin between the top scorer and the runner up of the election.
He said the difference between the votes of the PDP and APC candidates was 26,000, while the votes cancelled were 128,572. He said INEC would fix a date to conduct election in 172 polling units where election was cancelled due to disturbances, over voting and non-usage of the card reader machine.
The returning officer added that the election would also hold in Gama ward with over 40,000 registered voters whose result sheets got missing.
Reacting, a PDP agent at the collation centre, a former Secretary to the State Government, Alhajin Rabiu Sulaiman Bichi, said they would not append their signature to the result sheet until the electoral umpire did the right thing.
He urged INEC to go back to the affected areas and recount the ballot papers and include them in the final result and declare PDP as winner of the election.
On the part of APC, General Idris Bello Danbazau (Rtd) said INEC followed due process in conducting the collation and they were meticulous in the whole process, adding that the APC has accepted the declaration of the election as inconclusive.
“INEC did not say anybody won the election, and they followed the provision of the law. So we are going to prepare, re-assess, reorganize and launch for the re-run of the election ahead,” he said.
There was presence of heavily armed security personnel across the state metropolis and around the headquarters of the commission.
Our reporters observed that few minutes to the declaration of the results, soldiers, police, civil defence and DSS also took to the major streets in the metropolis.
Meanwhile, the police in Kano confirmed the arrest of Kano State Commissioner for Local Government, Murtala Sulen Garo and the Chairman Nasarawa Local Government Lamin Sani over alleged electoral offences.
Spokesman of the Kano State Police Command DSP Abdullahi Haruna said in a statement that the two would be prosecuted after investigation.
He said the suspects were arrested at about 1am at Nassarawa Local Government Collation Centre in Kano, where they allegedly tried to disrupt collation by destroying election result sheets.
He added that the security operatives also rescued Kano State Deputy Governor Dr Nasiru Yusuf Gawuna who was also at the scene.
