Sylvanus Viashima, Jalingo
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) for the Taraba Central senatorial seat, Senator Yusuf, Abubakar Yusuf, has been declared the winner of last Saturday’s election after defeating his closest rival and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party PDP Mr Bako Dahiru.
The returning officer, Professor Kolawaju Philips, who declared Yusuf winner and returned him elected, said there was great delay in the declaration of the results because of the difficult terrain and other irregularities that affected the election.
Senator Yusuf scored a total of 98,860 votes to defeat the Dahiru who score a total 95,074 votes.
While reacting to the results, Yusuf said that it was most unfortunate that people still go into politics with a mindset that it was a do-or-die affair and thanked God that despite the enormous challenges that accompanied the election, a winner had been declared to reflect the choice of the people.
He noted that even though the PDP won the presidential election in Taraba State, President Muhammadu Buhari had made the remarkable leap by winning more than four percent of the votes cast as against the less than 25 percent he won in the previous election.
“This is a testimony that the people have spoken. There were delays because a certain ward from Sardauna decided to bring their documents to Jalingo to rectify them before taking the results back to Bali for collation and announcement. But we thank God that the result is finally declared and we have won.
“You can see that the president has also made a remarkable leap by winning more than 40 percent of the votes cast. This is an indication that the people of the state are tired of PDP’s misgovernance and are ready to turn things around.
Senator Yusuf called on the people to remain calm even in the face of unwarranted provocation and to go out massively and vote for the APC in the forthcoming governorship and state Assembly elections.