By Uche Mbah
After series of reported violence, intimidation of voters and attacks on Journalists and independent observers,, the Independent National Electoral commission, INEC, has declared the Kano State Governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, winner of the Kano governorship elections. The All Progressives Congress, APC had polled a total of 45,876 votes while the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP polled 10, 239 votes. Prior to this, PDP was leading with 1,014,474 votes against the APC’s 987,819 votes.
During the supplementary elections, the media was awash with reports of violence and intimidation of voters by thugs. The Kano chapter of the PDP called on INEC to cancel the election, alleging that it has been marred by irregularities and voter intimidation, especially opposition voters.
Civil Society Organizations has flayed the Kano election as riddled with violence.
Even during the collation of results, the PDP agents walked out en mass from the collation enter cbefore the announcement of the final results.
Reports indicate that there has been tension in Kano after the results were announced.
Rabiu Bichi, the PDP boss in the state, said they will be heading to court. He cited violence as one of the things that marred the elections.
“What is happening today is not election. Thugs have taken over most polling units and have been attacking our members and voters”, he said.
“Many have been injured, in fact, a member of the state Assembly representing Gwale, Yusuf Babangida on election duty was attacked and seriously injured.things that marred the elections. We also have reports of attack on our members in Doguwa, Gwale and Dala, we are collecting the whole list of those attacked,” he added.
“We are going to pursue our right through legal means. Today is a sad day for Nigerian democracy, especially in Kano. Recall that governorship elections were held on March 9 not just in Kano but Nigeria as a whole. After the election, results from 43 out of 44 local governments were announced and we were leading, it was only the results from Nasarawa local government were pending and that was because the state deputy governor, the commissioner for local government and chairman of Nasarawa local government led some thugs to attack the collation centre and disrupt the process by tearing the result sheet”
It was found out that the figures did not tally in the final announced results. For example, in Makoda Local Council, the number of registered voters was 360; number of accredited voters was 360, number of PVC collected was 288. In the results declared, APC won 360 votes while PDP won non. This shows that voters turnout was 125%.
In other results, Samuel Orthom of PDP won in Benue, while Aminu Tambuwal won in Sokoto. Solomon Lalong of APC won in Plateau and PDP won in Bauchi.
