Muktar Idris of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has emerged winner of Zamfara governorship election held on Saturday. Muktar secured 534,541 votes out of the 810,782 votes cast across the 14 government areas of the state.
Announcing the result, the Returning Officer, Prof. Kabir Bala said “Muktar Idris of APC having met all the requirements of the law and scored the highest votes is hereby declared as the winner and returned elected as the governor of Zamfara State.”
He said that Bello Matawalle of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 189,452 to emerge second while Sen. Saidu Dansadau of National Rescue Movement scored 15,177 votes and Sani Abdullahi of All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) had 3,865 votes. According to the Returning Officer, the state has 1,717,128 registered voters, of which 823,294 were accredited during the election.
Meanwhile, some prominent citizens of Zamfara on Monday urged people of the state to remain calm and accept the outcome of the governorship and state assembly elections in good faith. Among them Minister of Defence, Mansur Danali, who told journalists at his Birnin Magaji residence that, no one should take the law into their hands or intimidate others over the outcome of the elections. He commended the effort of security personnel in the management and maintenance of law and order which he noted was largely responsible for peaceful conduct of the polls.
Similarly, the PDP governorship candidate, Alhaji Matawalle, directed all his supporters to accept the outcome of the elections as “an act of God.” Matawalle who commended the peaceful manner with which the electorates conducted themselves during the elections said it was a sign of maturity for the world to know that Nigeria’s democracy has come to stay.
Also commenting, the Senator representing Zamfara Central, Alhaji Kabiru Marafa urged the people of the state to consider the outcome of the elections as an “act of God.” Marafa who aspired to the governorship position at the last APC primaries, characterized by many challenges, had joined eight aggrieved APC governorship aspirants to form the G8 as a faction of the ruling party in the state. He said, “anyone who says there is no candidate for the governorship and state assembly elections in the state is either ignorant of the law or a mischief makers trying to cause problems.
Also speaking to journalists in Gusau, the Chairman of Gusau Local Government, Alhaji Ibrahim Tanko expressed satisfaction with the peaceful conduct of the elections. “Despite the security challenges that bedeviled the local government before the election, the process went peacefully and even shop owners and other businesses respected the order by not opening for business.”
Meanwhile, collation of the governorship election is still on going in Gusau as the returning officer, Prof. Kabiru Bala was still receiving the results from the 14 local government areas of the state and so far, 12 local government areas had submitted their results with the ruling APC leading in all.
