The All Progressives Congress (APC) has given the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) a seven-day ultimatum to review the declaration of results of the Kano state gubernatorial elections.
Recall that, the returning officer of INEC for Kano, Professor Ahmad Doko Ibrahim, declared Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) as the winner of the election on Monday morning.
He had hinged the declaration on his interpretation of the Electoral Act and the election guideline, which states that where an election is cancelled as a result of violence, the disenfranchised voters in that area do not count in the margin of victory between the winner and the runner-up.
However, addressing a press conference on Tuesday, the party through its legal adviser for the state chapter, Barrister Abdul Fagge, said the INEC returning officer erred in law and acted ultra vires of the Electoral Act by distinguishing cancellations due to violence and over-voting and deciding only to consider the latter in the final consideration of the margin of lead.
Fagge said 273,442 PVCs were collected in areas where the election was cancelled as a result of violence and over-voting, a figure he said meant that the margin of victory (128,897) used to declare Yusuf the winner of the NNPP was not sufficient based on the Electoral Act.
He said it was astonishing that, with the same election, 16 of the House of Assembly elections held the same day and under the same conditions were declared inconclusive by INEC.
On his part, the House Leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, argued that INEC departed completely from the conditions it used to declare his own federal constituency’s election results as inconclusive.
Also speaking, the gubernatorial candidate of the APC in the state, Nasir Yusuf Gawuna, appealed to party supporters to continue to maintain calm in the face of provocation while condoling with the families of those that have lost their lives and those that have lost their property due to the election and post-election violence.
Gawuna, the state’s deputy governor, expressed optimism that INEC would do the needful by not disenfranchising the majority of voters in the state.
Daily Trust
