In the March 9 Governorship election in Kano state at the announcement of the result from Nasarawa Local Government, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Abba Kabir Yusuf had polled 1,014,474 votes against the incumbent governor, Dr. Abdullahi Umar Ganduje who garnered 987,819 votes contesting under the All Progressives Congress (APC).

 

 

However, the cancelled votes during the election was 128,572 votes, against 26, 655 vote margin between the two candidates.

 

 

In essence, the returning officer for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state, Professor Bello Balla Shehu, was quoted saying, “The margin of victory is 26,655, this makes it impossible to make a return and declare a winner.”

 

 

This led to the declaration of the governorship election as inconclusive and the INEC fixed a supplementary election for March 23 in all affected areas in the state and was held last week Saturday.

Yesterday night, INEC after counting votes form the supplementary election, announced that Governor Ganduje, was the winner of the governorship election in the state, thereby returning him for a second term in office.

 

 

However, violence broke out in the state Sunday night, as aggrieved people turned out in large numbers and were desperate to force their way into the state INEC office, but for the timely intervention of the police, who had also positioned themselves in places around some the state INEC office.

The situation became worsened when Professor Shehu, declared the governorship candidate the APC, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, as the winner of governorship election.

 

 

The Police fired teargas into the air which prevented the angry youths from gaining entrance into state INEC office making everyone, including journalists and election observers to run helter sketter.

However, feelers said the irate youths have taken most of major roads in Kano State, and subjecting resident to palpable fear and tension, as many residents of Sabongari, an area very close to the INEC office, were forced indoors to avoid being attacked.

 

 

Shehu, while declaring the winner of the election, revealed that that the APC candidate garnered 1,033,695, while that of the PDP candidate, Abba Kabir Yusuf scored 1,024,713 votes.

 

 

He said that the APC candidate defeated the PDP candidate with 8,982 votes margin and therefore declared Ganduje the winner having satisfied requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes.

According to Shehu, the winner was declared after the collation of result from all the affected 28 local government areas where the supplementary elections was conducted on Saturday March 23.

 

 

 

He said Ganduje polled a total of 45,876 while Kabir of the PDP got 10,239 votes during Saturday’s supplementary elections in 28 local government areas of the state.

 

 

According to the collation officer, the total number of votes cancelled during the earlier election which led to the declaration of the poll as inconclusive was beyond the margin between the PDP candidate who was leading with 26,000 votes and that of the APC candidate.

 

 

Meanwhile, the state’s PDP Chairman, Alhaji Suleiman Rabiu – Bichi, had rejected the entire re-run election, especially that of Gama in Nassarawa Local Government Area.

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