INEC declares Tambuwal, Ganduje winners of Sokoto, Kano governorship re-run elections

By Muhammad Bello/Habibu Harisu
Sokoto; Abbas Bamalli, Kano, March. 24, 2019

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Gov. Aminu Tambuwal and Dr Abdullahi Ganduje winners of the governorship election, after Saturday’s supplementary poll in Sokoto and Kano states respectively. Tambuwal won by a small margin of 342 votes.

According to the Chief Collation/Returning Officer in Sokoto, Prof. Fatima Mukhtar, Tambuwal of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) secured the highest votes of 512, 002, defeating his close rival Alhaji Ahmad Aliyu of All Progressives Congress (APC) who polled 511, 660 votes.

“PDP candidate, Aminu Tambuwal having scored the highest votes in the election, is hereby declared winner and returned elected according to law” Mukhtar said.

Mukhtar, who is the Vice Chancellor of Federal University, Dutse, Jigawa state said the votes were tallied along with previous ones recorded after the March 9 election.

The election then was declared inconclusive because the vote difference between Tambuwal and his challenger was lower than the cancelled votes.

The total number of registered voters was 1, 887, 767 while 1, 083, 413 voters were accredited.

Total number of valid votes was 1,036,332 and the total number of rejected votes was 31, 662. The number of total votes cast was 1, 067, 994, Mukhtar said.

According to her, during the re-run election, PDP’s Tambuwal polled 22, 444 votes while APC’s Aliyu scored 25, 515 in the 135 polling units where supplementary elections were conduced.

She further explained that 49 candidates from other participating parties shared the remaining votes cast.

However, the APC agent at the collation centre, Alhaji Maigari Dingyadi raised the complaints the party made to INEC earlier about the malfunctioning card reader at a polling unit in Tambuwal.

Dingyadi added that election was repeated at the polling unit, after lawful election was conducted on March 9 election.

The PDP agent, Alhaji Umar Bature, dismissed the objections on the ground that the collation centre was not the right place to lodge the complaint.

Prof. Mukhtar noted the complaint and said that it would be reflected in the final report.

Declaring Ganduje, candidate of the APC, the winner of the election, the governorship election Collation Officer in Kano, Prof. Bello Shehu, said that the APC candidate garnered 1,033,695, while that of the PDP, Alhaji Abba Kabir scored 1,024,713 votes.

He said that the APC candidate defeated the PDP candidate with 8,982 votes margin and therefore declared Ganduje the winner having satisfied requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes.

According to Shehu, the winner was declared after the collation of result from all the affected 28 local government areas where the supplementary elections was conducted on Saturday March 23.

He said Ganduje polled a total of 45,876 while Kabir of the PDP got 10,239 votes during the last Saturday’s supplementary elections in 28 local government areas of the state.

News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) recalled that the governorship election was earlier declared inconclusive following the high number of cancellation of votes as a result of violence and over voting.

According to the collation officer, the total number of votes cancelled during the earlier election which led to the declaration of the poll as inconclusive was beyond the margin between the PDP candidate who was leading with 26,000 votes and that of the APC candidate.

Kabir had 1,014,474 against Ganduje who garnered 987,819 votes in the March 9 election.

NAN further recalled that the votes cancelled during the March 9 governorship election was 128,572 votes.

Meanwhile, the state’s PDP Chairman, Alhaji Suleiman Rabiu – Bichi, had rejected the entire re-run election, especially that of Gama in Nassarawa Local Government Area.

The PDP Chairman further described the election processes as shameful and called for the immediate cancellation of the exercise.

According to him, the party will not accept the result, therefore refused to sign it.