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The Kano State governorship supplementary election held last week, with incumbent governor, Abduallhi Ganduje emerging victorious. ABDULLAHI YAKUBU, in this report, writes on the intrigues and horsetrading that trailed the exercise.
There is no doubt that the Kano State governorship election, like in every other state of the federation, was conducted peacefully in some polling units, while the exercise was marred with violence, intimidation, ballot box snatching and disenfranchisement of voters in some other places in the state.
One must give kudos to the electoral body that made it possible for the employment of adhoc staff to support their regular staff, who were fully on ground to do their job without fear or favour.
Professor Shehu Risqua Arabu is the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), saddled with the responsibility of conducting free and fair election that will be acceptable to all and sundry.
He told reporters at a press conference held at the INEC headquarters few days to the commencement of the governorship election, that the electoral body was highly prepared to organise a hitch-free election throughout the state.
The REC said all the electoral materials ranging from sensitive to non-sensitive materials had arrived the state in good time and were kept in the safe custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) before it was later distributed to all the nooks and crany of the state.
However, the governorship election later went on smoothly across the state as all the parties, big and small, partook in the election. It was regarded as one of the most peaceful election ever in the history of the state.
But it was the collation of the governorship results from Gama ward of Nasarawa local government area that caused hitches because some aggrieved politicians went to the local government collation center and disrupted the process, thereby making the pendulum swing anti-clock wise .
It would be recalled that when the votes were counted after the exercise, the PDP, which had Engineer Abba K. Yusuf as its governorship candidate, polled 1,014,474 against the APC’s candidate and incumbent governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, scored 987,819 votes, a development that paved way for INEC to declare the election inconclusive as a result of high number of cancelled votes following violence and over-voting in some centres.
The declaration of the election by INEC as inconclusive, angered the opposition PDP who felt that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is silent over the issue. But as agued by the electoral body, the electoral laws are so specific on the controversial inconclusiveness of an election especially where the cancelled votes outnumbers the total votes cast for a particular candidate.
Since INEC slated Match 23 for the supplementary election to be held in six states including Kano, tongues began to wagged over the legality or otherwise of the process. In fact, the opposition PDP in the state, especially members of the Kwankwassiyya group, outrightly pointed accusing fingers at INEC as well as raised objection on the scheduled re-run election which they described as a sham.
The PDP rejected the out come of the election which scored Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of the as having polled 1, 033, 695 votes while that of the PDP, Engineer Abba K. Yusuf, who scored 1, 024, 713 votes to emerged second in the contest.
This impliedly means that the APC defeated its opponent with 8,982 votes margin to emerge the overall winner of the governorship election.
The position of the domestic and international observers is some thing to bring to fore as far as the Kano State governorship election is concerned.
The Pan African Women Projects is a national and international election observers group with multi faceted capacities and multi dimensional experiences in election observations with the aid of the state of art technological approach in compliance with international best practice.
It posited that the Kano supplementary election conducted by INEC was characterised by violence, intimidation, partnership on the part of Security agents as well voters disenfranchisement thereby condemning the process describing it as a sham.
In a statement signed by Mustapha Muhammad Ibrahim Dalhatu, who led members of the Kano Civil Society Organisation to the NUJ Press Centre, informed the press on how the NGO observed the election.
According to him, electoral violence, poor conduct of the security personnel was a source concerned by the CSOs that the organisation is bewildered by the situation in Kano State wherein the deployment of senior police officers could not stem the incident of political thuggery and intimidation as well as the violence that occurred in so many places.
The CSO cited the example of some of the polling units affected by the electoral malpractices such as vote buying and disenfranchisement of voters.
In its recommendation, the group said all those who felt aggrieved should explore legal means of channelling their grievances.
On their stand, the opposition PDP who felt aggrieved, said in a position paper signed by Alhaji Sanusi Bature Dawaki Tofa, that going by the political history of Kano, it has undergone the most horrific elections ever where the ruling APC and the State Government deployed all mechanisms to orchestrate violence against the PDP and the good people of Kano state, who witnessed a broad-day light robbery of their mandate by the enemies of democracy.
“It is with tremendous zeal and courage that we joined the 2019 Kano gubernatorial contest, believing in the impartiality of the umpire – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies, being on a mission to restore the lost glory of our dear state from the hand of political predators who destroyed every meaningful programme and policies set by the previous administration of Dr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso.

“The deliberate disruption of results Collation process in Nasarawa local government, which led to the cancellation of Gama ward, alongside numerous other polling units across the 28 local Government Areas and the appalling conduct of the players in the sham called inconclusive election, has raised serious doubts about the professionalism of the security agencies and the effectiveness, credibility and fairness of INEC as an organisation as well as professionalism and neutrality of the security agencies.
“We have written to INEC at the beginning of the exercise calling for the cancellation
of the ongoing rerun election, but the electoral body decided to shelve our request and go ahead with the process of the election in the rascal way,” he said.
On its part, the ruling APC, which is the winner of the election, described as false and exaggeration, the position of the PDP who it said always spread falsehood against the ruling party.
The APC, which spoke through the Commissioner of Information, Malam Mohammed Garba, described as false and a deliberate act for PDP to keep condemning the process that made it possible for Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to stage a comeback. (Leadership NG)
There is no doubt that the Kano State governorship election, like in every other state of the federation, was conducted peacefully in some polling units, while the exercise was marred with violence, intimidation, ballot box snatching and disenfranchisement of voters in some other places in the state.
One must give kudos to the electoral body that made it possible for the employment of adhoc staff to support their regular staff, who were fully on ground to do their job without fear or favour.
Professor Shehu Risqua Arabu is the INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), saddled with the responsibility of conducting free and fair election that will be acceptable to all and sundry.
He told reporters at a press conference held at the INEC headquarters few days to the commencement of the governorship election, that the electoral body was highly prepared to organise a hitch-free election throughout the state.
The REC said all the electoral materials ranging from sensitive to non-sensitive materials had arrived the state in good time and were kept in the safe custody of the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN) before it was later distributed to all the nooks and crany of the state.
However, the governorship election later went on smoothly across the state as all the parties, big and small, partook in the election. It was regarded as one of the most peaceful election ever in the history of the state.
But it was the collation of the governorship results from Gama ward of Nasarawa local government area that caused hitches because some aggrieved politicians went to the local government collation center and disrupted the process, thereby making the pendulum swing anti-clock wise .
It would be recalled that when the votes were counted after the exercise, the PDP, which had Engineer Abba K. Yusuf as its governorship candidate, polled 1,014,474 against the APC’s candidate and incumbent governor, Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje, scored 987,819 votes, a development that paved way for INEC to declare the election inconclusive as a result of high number of cancelled votes following violence and over-voting in some centres.
The declaration of the election by INEC as inconclusive, angered the opposition PDP who felt that the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria is silent over the issue. But as agued by the electoral body, the electoral laws are so specific on the controversial inconclusiveness of an election especially where the cancelled votes outnumbers the total votes cast for a particular candidate.
Since INEC slated Match 23 for the supplementary election to be held in six states including Kano, tongues began to wagged over the legality or otherwise of the process. In fact, the opposition PDP in the state, especially members of the Kwankwassiyya group, outrightly pointed accusing fingers at INEC as well as raised objection on the scheduled re-run election which they described as a sham.
The PDP rejected the out come of the election which scored Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje of the as having polled 1, 033, 695 votes while that of the PDP, Engineer Abba K. Yusuf, who scored 1, 024, 713 votes to emerged second in the contest.
This impliedly means that the APC defeated its opponent with 8,982 votes margin to emerge the overall winner of the governorship election.
The position of the domestic and international observers is some thing to bring to fore as far as the Kano State governorship election is concerned.
The Pan African Women Projects is a national and international election observers group with multi faceted capacities and multi dimensional experiences in election observations with the aid of the state of art technological approach in compliance with international best practice.
It posited that the Kano supplementary election conducted by INEC was characterised by violence, intimidation, partnership on the part of Security agents as well voters disenfranchisement thereby condemning the process describing it as a sham.
In a statement signed by Mustapha Muhammad Ibrahim Dalhatu, who led members of the Kano Civil Society Organisation to the NUJ Press Centre, informed the press on how the NGO observed the election.
According to him, electoral violence, poor conduct of the security personnel was a source concerned by the CSOs that the organisation is bewildered by the situation in Kano State wherein the deployment of senior police officers could not stem the incident of political thuggery and intimidation as well as the violence that occurred in so many places.
The CSO cited the example of some of the polling units affected by the electoral malpractices such as vote buying and disenfranchisement of voters.
In its recommendation, the group said all those who felt aggrieved should explore legal means of channelling their grievances.
On their stand, the opposition PDP who felt aggrieved, said in a position paper signed by Alhaji Sanusi Bature Dawaki Tofa, that going by the political history of Kano, it has undergone the most horrific elections ever where the ruling APC and the State Government deployed all mechanisms to orchestrate violence against the PDP and the good people of Kano state, who witnessed a broad-day light robbery of their mandate by the enemies of democracy.
“It is with tremendous zeal and courage that we joined the 2019 Kano gubernatorial contest, believing in the impartiality of the umpire – the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the security agencies, being on a mission to restore the lost glory of our dear state from the hand of political predators who destroyed every meaningful programme and policies set by the previous administration of Dr. Rabi’u Musa Kwankwaso.

“The deliberate disruption of results Collation process in Nasarawa local government, which led to the cancellation of Gama ward, alongside numerous other polling units across the 28 local Government Areas and the appalling conduct of the players in the sham called inconclusive election, has raised serious doubts about the professionalism of the security agencies and the effectiveness, credibility and fairness of INEC as an organisation as well as professionalism and neutrality of the security agencies.
“We have written to INEC at the beginning of the exercise calling for the cancellation
of the ongoing rerun election, but the electoral body decided to shelve our request and go ahead with the process of the election in the rascal way,” he said.
On its part, the ruling APC, which is the winner of the election, described as false and exaggeration, the position of the PDP who it said always spread falsehood against the ruling party.
The APC, which spoke through the Commissioner of Information, Malam Mohammed Garba, described as false and a deliberate act for PDP to keep condemning the process that made it possible for Dr Abdullahi Umar Ganduje to stage a comeback. (Leadership NG)
