Chidi Samuel|
Kano state on Monday joined the growing number of states with inconclusive governorship election.
The other states with similar situation are, Sokoto, Adamawa, Benue, Plateau and Bauchi
Voters in the six states are to wait a little longer to know who will be their governor as from May 29 when the tenure of incumbent governors expires.
INEC’s decision to declare the polls inconclusive in the affected states was taken because the number of cancelled votes was more than the margin between the two leading candidates in the affected states.
The commission will organise supplementary polls in the affected PUs to determine the winners of Saturday’s governorship elections in 29 states.
Kano
The state resident electoral commissioner, Riskuwa Shehu while declaring the governorship election inconclusive, said the number of cancelled outnumbered the margin of victory for the PDP candidate in the tabulated result.
Based on the results collated at the state collation centre, the PDP has a total of 1,014,353 votes while the APC polled 987,819 votes.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of the state, Riskuwa Shehu, said a new date will be fixed for elections to be conducted in the 22 LGAs where elections were cancelled.
Benue
The Independent National Electoral Commission has declared the governorship election in Benue State inconclusive.
The Returning Officer, Professor Sabastine Maimako made the announcement on Monday.
He said the election was inconclusive due to the gap between the cancelled votes of 121,019 as against the winning margin between the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) which is 81,554.
The PDP candidate, Samuel Ortom polled 410,576 votes while the APC candidate Emmanuel Jime polled 329,022 votes.
PDP leads with 81,554 votes but the number of cancelled votes is 121,019 which prompted the Returning Officer to declare the election inconclusive.
Bauchi
The Independent National Electoral Commission equally declared the governorship election in Bauchi State inconclusive.
Returning Officer for the elections in the state, Kyari Mohammed, declared the election inconclusive after in the first minutes of Monday after it was observed that the margin between the two leading candidates was less than the number of cancelled votes.
Results collated for the keenly contested election showed that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the election, Bala Mohammed, got 469,512 votes, 4,059 votes more than the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, who secured 465,453 votes.
Plateau
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Monday also declared the governorship election in Plateau state inconclusive.
Returning officers for the election made the declaration on Monday at collation centre in Jos, the state capital.
According to Professor Richard Kimbir, the state REC, the margin of lead of 44,929 between the APC and the PDP candidates is less than 49,377 cancelled votes.
According to the returning officer, this constrains him to return a winner but rather declare the election inconclusive and bye-elections should hold in the affected areas.
Simon Lalong of APC polled a total of 583,255 votes while Jerry Useni of PDP scored 538,326.
SOKOTO
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) also declared the governorship election in Sokoto State inconclusive.
The Returning Officer for the poll, Professor Fatima Muktar, announced this on Monday at the end of the collation of results from all local government areas of the state.
She explained that the election was inconclusive because the margin of the votes won was far lesser than the number of those cancelled.
According to the returning officer, a total of 1,881,767 voters registered in the state while 1,033,081 voters were accredited for the exercise.
The total number of votes cast was 1,018,024 out of which 987,942 were counted as valid votes.
After collating the results from all the local government areas, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 489,558 while the All Progressives Congress (APC) garnered 486,145 votes.
Professor Muktar noted that there was cancellation in 136 polling units across 22 LGAs with 75,403 registered voters.
She stressed that the margin of win by the PDP was 3,413 votes, which was way less than the number of cancelled votes.
Reacting to the development, Governor Aminu Tambuwal and candidate of the PDP urged the commission to declare him winner of the poll in the spirit of fairness and justice.
According to him, the decision by the Returning Officer of INEC, Professor Fatima Mukhtar, to declare the exercise inconclusive was unconstitutional.
Citing Section 179(2) of the constitution of the Federal Republic stated that the provision clearly explains how to conduct governorship polls.
He said: “Our party, the PDP has returned the highest number of votes and have won 2/3 of the local governments in the state and, therefore, the decision of INEC is not founded in law. We wonder why INEC is coming with this technical reason to declare the exercise inconclusive.”
Bauchi
Bauchi state governorship election was also declared inconclusive by The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
Returning Officer for the elections in the state, Kyari Mohammed, declared the election inconclusive after in the first minutes of Monday after it was observed that the margin between the two leading candidates was less than the number of cancelled votes.
Results collated for the keenly contested election showed that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the election, Bala Mohammed, got 469,512 votes, 4,059 votes more than the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, who secured 465,453 votes.
ADAMAWA
The PDP candidate, Umaru Fintiri, said the electoral commission has only postponed his victory by declaring the election inconclusive.
Fintiri said he was sure of winning the supplementary poll whenever it is conducted.
The PDP flagbearer was leading incumbent Governor Jibrila Bindow by end of the collation early yesterday.
INEC pronounced the election inconclusive because the margin of lead between the two leading candidates was smaller than the number of cancelled votes.
Fintiri polled 367,471 votes to take the lead. He was being trailed by the incumbent, who is the APC candidate. Bindow got 334,995 votes.
Explaining how he arrived at declaring the election inconclusive, the state returning officer, Prof Andrew Haruna, had said the 32,467 margin between Fintiri and Bindow was lower than the 40,948 votes cancelled in 44 polling units.
Prof Andrew said election would be held in the affected units to address the vote cancellation anomaly.
With agency reports
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