APC Wins Kano Governorship Elections Amid Protests by PDP

The All Progressives Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, has emerged winner of the governorship election in Kano State with a margin of 8,982 votes ahead of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

In the result declared on Sunday evening by the Kano State Returning Officer of Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Bello Shehu, said the APC polled 1,033,695 while the PDP got 1,024,713 votes out of a total of 2,269,305 accredited voters in the state.

The incumbent governor, Ganduje of the APC is therefore declared winner of the governorship election in Kano.

A total of 50,861 votes were declared rejected in the whole exercise due to violence and over-voting.

However, the collation centre was heated up by agents of some parties, including the PDP, who wanted INEC to address the irregularities that marred the election before declaring the result which INEC declined.

 

The acting state Chairman of the PDP, Rabiu Sulaiman Bichi, insisted that there was no election in Gama ward where the electorate was disenfranchised.

Aliyu Sani Madakin Gini, a member of House of Representatives on the PDP platform, called on the INEC to cancel the results from Nasarawa LGA in the supplementary election because it was marred by violence and intimidation of voters.

"INEC cannot be fair if it declares a doctored result when the Gama ward result was cancelled due to violence in the last election and now accepted amidst the same violence in the rerun election" the Rep member said.

Also, the Collation Officer representing All Peoples Party (APP), Hon Fatima Abubakar Abdullahi, complained that no election took place at Kibiya LGA, one of the affected LGAs, but the INEC has received and collated the result.

She insisted that the rerun election was not free and fair and should be cancelled.

In a reaction by the APC members, the Senator representing Kano North on the APC platform, Barau Jibrin, argued that the process of the collation should be respected by the PDP, saying all complaints of irregularities should be addressed at the polling units and wards not at the state collation centre where final submitted results are collated.

He added that "whosoever is not satisfied with the result should seek redress at the Election Tribunal."