As INEC declares Sokoto, Kano governorship polls inconclusive
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has officially declared the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Darius Ishaku, as the winner of the 2019 governorship election held on Saturday, March 9 in Taraba State.
The returning officer for the election, Prof. Shehu Iya of the Modibo Adama University, Yola, Adamawa State, who announced the result at INEC office in Jalingo around 3.50am said the PDP candidate scored a total vote of 520, 433 while the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Mr. Sani Danladi got 362, 735.
A breakdown of the result from the 16 local government areas of shows that the PDP which has not lost governorship election in Taraba State since 1999 won in12 while the APC won in four.
PDP won convincingly in Wukari local government where it polled 92,527 while the APC had 34,995 votes.
In the governor’s local government, the PDP won with 50,562 votes compared to APC’s 14,014.
For the APC, its biggest win was in Jalingo local government it got 58,511 votes compared to the PDP’s 31,917
In Imo State, former deputy speaker of the House of Representatives, Mr. Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP was declared winner of the governorship election.
Premium Times reports that Ihedioha polled 273,404 to defeat the candidate of the Action Alliance (AA), Mr. Uche Nwosu, who polled a total of 190,364.
Nwosu is the son in-law of the incumbent governor of the state, Mr. Governor Rochas Okorocha who backed his candidacy.
The candidate of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA), Mr. Ifeanyi Ararume came third with 114, 676 ahead of Mr. Hope Uzondima of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who got 96,458, while the candidate of the Accord Party (AP) and Okorocha’s predecessor, Mr. Ikedi Ohakim had 6,846 votes.
Announcing the results of the election about 12 midnight on Monday, the state’s returning officer and vice chancellor of the Federal University of Agriculture, Umundike, Abia State, Prof. Francis Atunta, gave the total registered voters across the state’s 27 local government areas as 2,221,008 and the total accredited voters as 823,743.
He said a total of 25,130 votes were cancelled across the state with total valid votes as 714,355 while the total votes cast is 739,485.
A total of 70 candidates representing various political parties took part in the election.
But in Sokoto State, no victory party has been held because INEC had declared election in that state as inconclusive.
The returning officer, Prof. Fatima Batulu Muktar, who declared the election inconclusive, based her decision on the huge number of cancelled votes.
Out of the total number of 1,033,081 accredited voters of the 1,887,767 registered voters, 987,942 was recorded as valid votes and 30,082 as rejected votes, from the 1,018024 total votes cast.
Governor Aminu Tambuwal of the PDP, with a total vote of 489,558 was ahead of his former, Mr. Ahmed Aliyu of the APC who got polled 486,145 votes, with a margin of 3,413 votes.
Mukhtar said the margin, in contrast with the number of cancelled votes, rendered the election inconclusive.
“Due to cancellation in 22 local government areas across 136 polling units with a total number of 75,403 cancelled votes, I cannot conclude this exercise and INEC will have to take a decision on this,” she said.
And in Kano State, the returning officer, Prof. Bello Shehu, declared the governorship election as inconclusive.
Shehu said the election was inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes was higher than the difference in votes scored between the two leading candidates: Mr. Abba Yusuf of the PDP and incumbent governor, Mr. Abdullahi Ganduje of the APC.
Announcing the results, Shehu said while the PDP candidate polled 1,014,474 votes, the APC candidate scored 987,819 votes leaving a difference of 26,655 votes.
He also said the total number of votes cancelled across 22 local government areas including Gama ward of Nasarawa local government areas is 141,694 votes.
The returning officer said based on the provisions of the law, he had to declare the election inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes is higher than the difference between the two major candidates.
Elections had earlier been declared inconclusive in Benue, Plateau, Adamawa, Bauchi and Sokoto. Kano has just been added to the list.
