BREAKING: Ganduje Wins Controversial Kano Governorship Election

Abdullahi HammedMarch 24, 2019

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Abdullahi Ganduje, incumbent Governor of Kano State, has secured a second term in office as winner of the governorship election.

Ganduje, who contested on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC), won with a margin of more than 9,000 votes after the collation of figures for the supplementary elections held on March 23, 2019.

Two local government areas had delayed the final collation till now: Kibiya and Nasarawa LGAs. However, the results for the LGAs in supplementary elections were declared on Sunday evening, the results for both LGAs were announced. For Kibiya LGA, Abba Yusuf, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 228 votes, while the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 371 votes. For Nasarawa LGA, APC secured a whopping 10,536 votes against 3,409 votes secured by the PDP.

There was mild drama during the announcement as the INEC Returning Officer told the Collation Officer for Nasarawa LGA to check his figures as they did not tally, and showed evidence of over-voting. After checks by the returning officer, valid votes stood at 14,048; rejected votes were 376, while total votes cast were 14,424.

So, at the end of the supplementary elections held in 28 LGAs on March 23, PDP polled a total of 10,239 votes against 45,876 votes secured by APC.

Before the elections were declared inconclusive after the March 9 governorship election, PDP was leading with 1,014,474 votes, while APC had secured 987,819 votes.

However, after the March 23 governorship election, the total figures for APC stood at 1,033,695 votes against 1,024,713 votes secured by PDP, meaning Ganduje won with a margin of 8,982 votes.

Four polling units were cancelled in Gama Ward in Nasarawa LGA due to incidents of over voting and violence. A total of 2,639 votes were cancelled.

The Kano governorship election is arguably one of the most controversial governorship elections, and unarguably the most controversial of the supplementary elections, as it was marred by incidents of violence and voter intimidation.