The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kano State has rejected the result validating the election of the New Nigerian People’s Party’s (NNPP) Abba Yusuf as governor-elect.
The Independent National Electoral Commission had on Monday declared Yusuf as the winner of the election.
Announcing the result in Kano, the state Returning Officer, Prof. Doko Ibrahim, the Vice-Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, said Yusuf polled 1,019,602 votes to emerge victorious.
He said that the flagbearer defeated his closest rival and incumbent Deputy governorof the state, Malam Yusuf Gawuna of the APC, who scored 892,705 votes.
But reacting to this at a news conference in Kano on Tuesday, the state Chairman of the party, Alhaji Abdullahi Abbas, said the APC would challenge the result.
Abbas, who was represented by the party’s Legal Adviser, Mr Abdul Adamu Fagge, insisted that the election should be declared inconclusive.
According to him, the cancelled votes are greater than the margin between the candidate of APC and NNPP as provided by the Electoral Act.
The party also drew attention to the cancellation of 16 House of Assembly elections in the state, sighting violence as the reason, while the same votes were considered in collating the governorship election.
While expressing dismay over the result, he said the two elections took place same day, same time, same places and under the same circumstances.
On his part, Gawuna lauded faithful members for demonstrating maturity during and after the election.
“We will follow due legal process to reclaim our mandate as we call residents to continue to live in peace with one another,” he said.
Gawuna said that the party had decided to challenge the outcome of elections through legal process.
The Majority Leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, said his election were similar to what transpired in Kano, but he has his election declared inconclusive.
Doguwa, said that out of the 13 affected polling units 12 were cancelled based on violence and over voting, and today he has accepted his faith waiting for the rerun of the election.