Governorship Elections: INEC declares Plateau, Adamawa, Sokoto and Bauchi governorship elections inconclusive
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the governorship election in Plateau and Adamawa States inconclusive.
Returning officers for the election in both states made the declaration on Monday in separate announcements at their respective collation centres.
In Jos, the Plateau State capital, Professor Richard Kimbir announced that the margin of a lead of 44,929 between the APC and the PDP candidates is less than 49,377 cancelled votes.
According to the returning officer, this constrains him to return a winner but rather declare the election inconclusive and bye-elections should hold in the affected areas.
Simon Lalong of APC polled a total of 583,255 votes while Jerry Useni of PDP scored 538,326.
The election was declared inconclusive in both states following a similar development in Sokoto State.
Professor Fatima Muktar had given the same reason for her decision and asked those troubled to channel their grievances to the electoral body.
INEC also declared the governorship elections in Sokoto and Bauchi states inconclusive.
The Returning Officer for the poll in Sokoto, Professor Fatima Muktar, announced on Monday at the end of the collation of results from all local government areas of the state that the election was inconclusive because the margin of the votes won was far lesser than the number of those cancelled.
According to the returning officer, a total of 1,881,767 voters registered in the state while 1,033,081 voters were accredited for the exercise.
The total number of votes cast was 1,018,024 out of which 987,942 were counted as valid votes.
After collating the results from all the local government areas, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 489,558 while the All Progressives Congress (APC) garnered 486,145 votes.
Professor Muktar noted that there was cancellation in 136 polling units across 22 LGAs with 75,403 registered voters.
She stressed that the margin of win by the PDP was 3,413 votes, which was way less than the number of cancelled votes.
The returning officer, thereafter, declared the election inconclusive, saying INEC would take a decision on the matter.
She also asked those troubled by the declaration to channel their grievances to the electoral body.
Meanwhile, the Returning Officer for the elections in Bauchi State, Kyari Mohammed, declared the election inconclusive after in the first minutes of Monday after it was observed that the margin between the two leading candidates was less than the number of cancelled votes.
Results collated for the keenly contested election showed that the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in the election, Bala Mohammed, got 469,512 votes, 4,059 votes more than the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, who secured 465,453 votes.
.with Channels Tv reports