NASIRU Gawuna, governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Saturday’s Kano election, has said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) ought to have declared the exercise inconclusive.
Addressing journalists on Tuesday, Gawuna who was in the company of party leaders, Gawuna said was astoninishing that with the same election, 16 of the House of Assembly elections held same day and same conditions were declared inconclusive by INEC.
News Point Nigeria reports that the Returning Officer of INEC for Kano, Professor Ahmad Doko Ibrahim, Monday morning declared Abba Kabir Yusuf of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) as the winner of the election.
He had hinged the declaration on his interpretation of the Electoral Act and election guideline that where election was cancelled as a result of violence, the disenfranchised voters in such area would not count in the margin of lead principle between the first and the runner up.
However, on his part, the party legal adviser for the APC 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 margin of lead.
Fagge said 273,442 PVCs were collected in areas where 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 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 same day and under 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 families of those that have lost their lives and those that have lost their properties due to the election and post-election violence.
Gawuna, the state’s deputy governorship, expressed optimism that INEC would do the needful by not disenfranchising the majority of voters in the state.
