Nasarawa gov. wins re-election bid as INEC declares Kebbi election inconclusive
Nassarawa State Governor and the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Abdullahi Sule, has been declared the winner of the governorship election held on March 18.
Analysts had predicted that the Nasarawa Governor may find it difficult to be re-elected given the poor performance of APC in the February 25 presidential and national assembly elections in the state.
APC lost the presidential election and most of the national seats to opposition parties during the election.
However, Governor Sule won in seven out of 13 local government areas of the state with 347,209 votes to be re-elected with a narrow margin of about 64,000 votes against his closest challenger.
The collation officer of INEC, Prof. Tanko Ishaya, said David Ombugadu of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled a total of 283,016 votes.
“Abdullahi Sule of APC, having satisfied the requirements of the law and scored the highest number of votes in the election is hereby declared the winner and returned elected,” the Returning Officer declared.
The collated results show that the candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) Abdullahi Maidoya came third in the election with 11,726 votes and Mohammed Alfa Nyas of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) got 9003 votes.
Meanwhile, INEC declared that it cannot announce any winner among the two leading gubernatorial candidates in Kebbi State.
Collated results show that the All Progressives Congress, (APC) candidate was in the lead with 388,258 votes, while his closest challenger, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate garnered 342,980 votes.
The Collation and Returning Officer of the election, Prof. Yusuf Sa’idu of the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, announced the position at the collation centre situated at INEC headquarters in Birnin Kebbi.
Prof. Usman noted that there were cancellations of election results in 20 of the 21 Local Government Areas of the state.
He noted that the cancellation cuts across a number of Registration Areas (RAs) in different polling units with a total of 91,829 voters which is more than 45,278 difference in the votes between the leading candidate and his closest challenger.
“We aggregated the total number of collected PVCs in those polling units and it came to a total of 91,829.
“And when we checked the results, the two leading political parties in this contest, APC and PDP polled 388,258 and 342,980 votes respectively. When we looked at the difference, it stands at 45,278,” Sa’idu said.
He noted that they had no option but to refer to the electoral laws on page 31 of the Electoral Act 2022, section 51 sub-sections two and three for guidance.
According to him, the law reads, “Where the number of votes cast in an election in any polling unit exceeds the number of accredited voters in that polling unit, the presiding officer shall cancel the result of the election in that polling unit.
“Sub-section three of section 51 also states that where the result of an election is cancelled in accordance with sub-section two, there shall be no return for the election until another poll has taken place in the affected polling unit.
“By virtue of these provisions and the powers vested in me as the collation and returning officer of the 2023 gubernatorial election in Kebbi State, I, Prof. Yusuf Sa’idu of the Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, hereby declare the gubernatorial election in Kebbi State inconclusive.”
The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that the election was keenly contested by the two giant political parties, APC and PDP.
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