The keenly contested gubernatorial election in Kogi State was on Sunday evening declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.
INEC returning officer for the election, Prof. Emmanuel Kucha of Federal University of Agriculture, Makurdi, explained that no party could be declared the winner yet as the numbers of cancelled votes was more than the difference between the two leading candidates.
Out of the valid votes cast yesterday, Prince Abubakar Audu of APC had garnered 240,827 votes while PDP’s Wada came second with 199,514 votes. The Labour Party, LP, candidate, Dr. Philip Salawu scored 8,756 to came a distant third.
Though the election was peaceful across the three senatorial axis but there were some polling units had hiccups resulting in cancellation of result in 59 polling units across 18 Local Government area of the state due to non adherence to Card reader usage, over voting, ballot snatching, violence and other irregularities.
According to Kucha, “Since the number of cancelled votes was 49,953 while the difference between the votes scored by the APC and PDP candidates stood at 41,353, the election could not yet be declared as conclusive.
“Applying provision of INEC guideline, page 22 – 23 paragraph 4(m), the election will be re-conducted in 59 polling units across eighteen LGAs.”
The Breakdown of the result declared so far shows that Audu won 16 out of the 21 Local Government areas of the state while Wada won five of the LGAs.
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