Desmond Mgboh, Kano

The Returning Officer of the Kano State governorship and House of Assembly elections, Professor Balarabe, Bello Shehu, has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Dr Abdullahi, Umar Ganduje, the winner of the tempestuous governorship contest in the state.

Announcing the figures of the results of the main and supplementary elections held on March 9 and March 23, the Returning Officer said that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored a total of 1,033,695 votes while that of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP), Engineer Abba Kabir Yusuf, scored a total of 1,024,713 votes.

The candidate of the People’s Redemption Party (PRP), he revealed, scored a total of 104,065 votes.

The total votes cast in the election, according to the Returning Officer stood at 2,242,369 while the total number of accredited voters was 2,269,305 and the total number of rejected votes was 50,861.

Professor Shehu had earlier announced the results of the supplementary elections held on March 23 in the state in which the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored a total of 45,876 votes while his closest rival of the PDP scored 10,239 votes; the total votes cast stood at 57,507.

At all the stages of the collation of the supplementary results, the PDP had relentlessly called attention to allegations of electoral violations such as violence and use of thugs during the exercise while appealing to the Independent National Electoral Commission to cancel the results of the poll.

Meanwhile, members of the APC across the state have broken into celebration following the announcement of the governorship results while their counterparts of the PDP have since rejected the poll’s result.

Speaking to our correspondent, the Caretaker Chairman of the PDP, Engineer Rabiu, Suleiman Bichi, rejected the results, assuring that his party would be heading for the tribunal to challenge it.

He said that in addition to the numerous violations of the provisions of the Electoral Act, the recent judgement on the Osun governorship elections had given them a new impetus to press a case against the conduct of the supplementary election.

He confirmed that several of their members had been hospitalised following the violence perpetrated by the APC during the supplementary poll.