INEC declares APC’s Ganduje winner of Kano Gov Polls

The Returning Officer for the Kano Governorship Election, Prof. Bello Shehu, has declared incumbent Governor Abdullahi Ganduje winner of the 2019 governorship election in the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria reports that the results of a combination of March 9 and 23 elections show All Progressives Congress as garnering 1,033,695, while the Peoples Democratic Party netted 1,024,713.

Ganduje won with a margin of 8,982, NAN reports.

Declaring the winner of the election, the Collation Officer in Kano, Prof. Bello Shehu, said that the APC candidate garnered 1,033,695, while that of the Peoples Democratic Party, 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 the requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes.

According to Shehu, the winner was declared after the collation of results 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 last Saturday’s supplementary elections in 28 local government areas of the state.

News Agency of Nigeria 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.

Meanwhile, the state’s PDP chairman, 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.