BREAKING: Tribunal Affirms Gov Ganduje’s victory
The Kano State governorship election tribunal has upheld the election of Governor Abdullahi Ganduje.
Delivering the judgement on Wednesday, the tribunal’s chairperson, Halima Shamaki, announced the dismissal of the petition of the People Democratic Party and it’s governorship candidate.
Mr Ganduje was announced the winner of the election following a supplementary election held in the state.
The governorship election in Kano held on March 9.
Two days later, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared the outcome of election inconclusive.
The state’s INEC Returning Officer, Bello Shehu, said the election was inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes is higher than the difference in votes scored between the two leading candidates: Mr Yusuf of the PDP and Mr Ganduje of the APC
Announcing the results, Mr Shehu said while the PDP candidate polled 1,014,474 votes, Mr Ganduje of the APC scored 987,819 votes leaving a difference of 26,655 votes.
He also said the total number of votes cancelled across 22 local government areas including Gama ward of Nasarawa local government is 141,694 votes.
The returning officer said based on the provisions of the law, he had to declare the election inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes is much higher than the difference between the two major candidates.
The Supplementary Election
The supplementary election held on March 24 and was characterised by violence and voter intimidation by armed thugs.
After the supplementary election, Mr Ganduje, who was trailing, was declared the winner.
In the supplementary election held in 28 out of the 44 local government
areas in the state, Mr Ganduje won by scoring 45,876 votes to Mr Yusuf’s
10,239 thereby upturning the result in his favour, INEC said.
The Returning Officer, Mr Shehu, announced that Mr Ganduje scored a total vote of 1,033,695 while Mr Yusuf polled 1,024,713.
He made the announcement at the headquarters of INEC in Kano.
The winning margin was 8,982 between the two major candidates.