The Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Kano, Alhaji Suleiman Rabiu – Bichi has rejected the entire re-run election, especially Gama in Nassarawa LGA, describing the poll as shameful and calling for the immediate cancellation of the exercise. According to him, the party will not accept the result. It therefore refused to sign it.
The incumbent governor, Umar Ganduje was declared winner of the supplementary election held in the state on Saturday, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). Ganduje, the candidate of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC), polled a total of 45, 876 while his challenger Abba Yusuf of the PDP had 10, 231 votes. Only 57, 777 voters were accredited for the election out of the possible 131, 073 registered voters, the returning officer for the election Professor Bello B. Shehu said. The election was held in 207 polling units across 75 wards in 28 local government areas of the state.
Before the supplementary election, the PDP candidate had 1,014,474 votes, while Ganduje got 987,819 votes. Prof. Shehu declared the first ballot held on March 9, inconclusive after the margin between Yusuf, who was in the lead, and Ganduje was lower than the number of votes cancelled. The margin was 26,655 while 100,873 votes were cancelled. In the supplementary elections held in polling units in 28 LGAs, Ganduje reportedly won 45,876 votes while the PDP candidate got 10,239 votes.
The Collation Officer, Prof. Shehu, declared Ganduje the winner having satisfied requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes from all the affected 28 local government areas where the supplementary elections was conducted on Saturday March 23. The cumulative figures for both the inconclusive election and the supplementary election show that APC polled 1,033, 695 ahead of PDP with 1, 024, 713.
However, there was tension at the collation center as agents of some parties, including the PDP, wanted INEC to address the irregularities that marred the election before declaring the result, a request INEC declined. The Acting 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 under the PDP 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,”Rep Gini said.
Also, the agent representing All Peoples Party (APP), Hon Fatima Abubakar Abdullahi, complained that no election took place at Kibiya LGA, one of the affected LGAs, but INEC received and collated the result. She insisted that the rerun was not free and fair and should be cancelled.
