The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC), has declared as “inconclusive”, the outcome of the governorship elections in four states of the country namely; Bauchi, Sokoto and Adamawa and Plateau states.
In Bauchi, the Returning Officer, RO, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, announced the cancellation of the result from entire Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area o the state due to irregularities.
He also noted that the exercise in some other polling units suffered the same fate.
The RO also noted: “The margin between the winner and opponent is less than the total number of votes cancelled in some polling units.
“By law, since the margin of winner is less than the total number of votes cancelled and registered voters in the areas where the votes have been cancelled, this elections is hereby declared inconclusive.”
According to him, his decision was in line with section 26 part 53 of the Electoral Act.
Before declaring the election inconclusive, Kyari had announced the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar of APC to have polled 465,453 votes while his main rival Bala Mohammed of PDP got 469,512 votes.
Kyari said that the Independent National Electoral Commission would conduct re- run election within 21 days in the affected Local Government area and polling unit which results had been cancelled before the final announcement of the winner.
In Sokoto, it was the same story. The State’s Chief Returning Officer, Prof. Fatima Muktar said the decision was premised on the fact that the margin of difference between the two main contenders was far less than the number of votes cancelled.
He put the number of votes cancelled as 75, 403 while the margin of difference was 3, 413.
The RO disclosed that 51 candidates contested the election.
“From the forgoing, the election is declared inconclusive as I cannot take a decision in recognition of the narrow margin according to electoral law” Muktar said.
She said the total registered voters were 1, 887, 767 while 1, 033, 081 voters were accredited. Total valid votes were 987, 952 and the total rejected votes, 30, 082 while the total votes cast were 1, 018, 024 at the conclusion of voting.
According to the results declared, Gov. Aminu Tambuwal of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, won the election in 12 out of the 23 LGAs results announced with 3,413 votes margins.
He polled 489, 558 votes while his close rival, Ahmad Aliyu of the All Progressives Congress, APC, scored 486, 145 votes.
According to Muktar, the PDP has the higher votes in 12 LGAs while APC has 11 LGAs with a margin of 3, 413 votes difference between them.
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In Adamawa, The Returning Officer .Prof. Andrew Haruna, who made the declaration on Monday in Yola, said the number of cancellations was higher than the margin of lead votes between the two main contestants and therefore, a new date for the rerun election would be fixed.
Haruna said about 44 polling units were affected across the state.
In Plateau, the Returning Officer, Prof Richard Kimbir, again cited the margin of lead as the reason for declaring the election inconclusive.
The All Progressives Congress candidate, Simon Lalong, led with 583,255 votes in 11 local governments, while the Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Jeremiah Useni, got 538,326.
Given the 44,929 margin of lead and the total number of cancelled votes at 49,377, Kimbir said the election was inconclusive.
“Going by the 1999 Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria as amended, I am constrained to say that the election to governorship election is inconclusive. In 21 days, supplementary elections will be conducted.”
The total number of registered voters was put at 2,480,455, while accredited voters was 1,147,025.
The total number of valid votes was 1,138,987 with 16,691 rejected votes, resulting in 1,154,678 total votes cast.