Amidst allegations of thuggery, violence and ballot box snatching, Abdullahi Ganduje, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State, has been declared winner of the governorship election in Kano State by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
With this win, APC has captured 16 states after the March 9 and March 23 re-run governorship election in the country while PDP is trailing with 12 states.
Before the declaration, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP in Kano State Chapter had released a statement that the state will degenerate into crisis if Ganduje was declared as the winner of the supplementary election by INEC.
However, Bello Shehu, INEC’s Returning Officer, declared that Ganduje, having polled the majority of votes had been declared re-elected.
The Returning Officer explained that valid votes stood at 14,048, rejected votes were 376, while total votes cast were 14,424. So, at the end of the supplementary election, which held in 28 LGAs, on March 23, the PDP polled a total of 10,239 votes, against 45,876 votes secured by the APC.
Before the elections were declared inconclusive after the March 9 Governorship election, the PDP was leading with 1,014,474 votes, while APC had secured 987,819 votes.
In the result of March 23 Governorship election announced by Shehu, Ganduje polled 1,033,695 votes to defeat Abba Yusuf of Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, candidate who polled 1,024,713 votes. Ganduje, therefore, won with a margin of 8,982 votes.
Meanwhile, Rabiu Kwankwaso, a chieftain of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and former governor of Kano State, lost in his local government area to the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Saturday’s supplementary governorship election.
The incumbent governor and candidate of APC, Abdullahi Ganduje, who is seeking re-election, defeated the PDP in Madobi LGA where Mr Kwankwaso hails from.
The results from the areas in which the re-run election was held showed that Mr Ganduje of the APC polled 908 votes while PDP polled 164 which is a margin of 744 votes.
Mr Ganduje scored 24,491 to defeat Abba Kabir-Yusuf (Kwankwaso’s protege), of the PDP, who polled 24,309 votes in Madobi local government area in the March 9 election.
