Following the disruption of the collation process, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has resumed collation of the remaining results in the Kano Governorship Election.
The INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, Riskuwa Arab-Shehu announced said the suspension was necessary because of reports of the security challenges from the only local government left to be announced in the governorship elections results.
Recall that some thugs led by the Deputy Governor of the state, Nasiru Gawuna, the state commissioner for Local Government, Murtala Sule-Garo and chairman of Nassarawa Local Government, Lamin Sani, have been arrested for destroying result sheets as Peoples Democratic Party, PDP leads in 43 local governments declared so far.
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The trio stormed the Nassarawa Collation Centre at 3am on Airport Road in three SUVs and went to the collation centre and tore up the result sheets of Nassarawa Local Government.
Immediately after snatching the election materials, party and security agents accosted them and beaten to a pulp and led into a police vehicle.
The unofficial figures of the local government result show PDP leading with 62,575 votes, against APC’s 24,184 votes.
Overall, the PDP polled 951,531 votes in 43 of the 44 local governments as against APC’s 935,451 votes.
Speaking with newsmen shortly after reconvening at the collation centre, the declared that the results of Kano governorship elections are intact and safe.
On the remaining votes, Mr Shehu emphasized that INEC would regenerate the results from the primary and secondary data where 10 out of the 11 wards where collation had already been concluded.
“We are on it, we would be transparent. We have nothing to hide all what we are demanding for is for the parties to be patient to allow the commission to regenerate the gubernatorial results from the source,” he stressed.
He however urged residents to be peaceful so as not to trigger unnecessary trouble in the state.
“There is need for us to conduct ourselves in a peaceful manner so that when there is peace, harmony will reign. This is what we are pleading for the people to understand,’’ the REC said.
Chairman of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Rabiu Suleiman Bichi urged INEC in Kano to declare the gubernatorial election results in favor of PDP.
According to him: ”I am baffled why the INEC is delaying the declaration of PDP as the winner of the March 9th, governorship election, arguing that, since there are 11 wards in the LGA and 10 have already been concluded, the isolated ward should not have affected the release of the results in the whole LGA.
“We are pleading for as a matter of urgency to declare PDP as the winner of the election for peace to reign in Kano because the atmosphere in Kano is tense”.
