APC takes Kano, Plateau while PDP wins Sokoto, Benue, Bauchi in rescheduled guber elections

The Independent National Electoral Commission on Sunday released the results of the supplementary governorship elections conducted in some states that were initially declared inconclusive.

The states included Sokoto, Plateau, Kano, Benue and Bauchi.

In the election results declared, the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal and his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, both of the Peoples Democratic Party, narrowly edged their closest rivals to emerge victorious at the governorship supplementary election conducted in their states on Saturday.

Meanwhile, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State and his Kano State counterpart, Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, of the All Progressives Congress, were also returned elected by INEC.

According to INEC, Tambuwal won a second term with a slim margin of 342 votes, polling 512,002 votes to defeat his former deputy, Ahmed Aliyu of the APC, who garnered 511,660 votes.

The PDP had won the March 9 governorship election with 3,413 votes scoring 489,558 votes in the inconclusive poll while the APC polled 486,145. The APC, however, won the supplementary election scoring 25,515 votes to PDP’s 24,444.

Announcing the final results of the election on Sunday, the state Returning Officer, Prof. Fatimah Mukhtar, said the total registered voters were 1,887,767 and accredited voters, 1,083,413.

She put the votes cast at 1,067,994 while the number of rejected votes was 31,662.

While declaring Tambuwal the winner of the poll, the returning officer said, “Aminu Tambuwal having satisfied the constitutional requirements, is hereby declared the winner of the election.”

Benue State Governor Samuel Ortom polled 434,473 votes to defeat his closest rival, Emmanuel Jime, of the APC, who had 345,155 votes.

Plateau State Governor Simon Lalong was also declared winner, having polled 595,582 votes to defeat PDP’s retired General Jeremiah Useni, who got 546,813 votes.

In Kano State, Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje defeated Abba Kabiru Yusuf of the PDP with a marginal difference of 8,982 votes.

Declaring the merged results of the March 9 and 23, 2019 results, Returning Officer Bello Shehu said the APC candidate polled 1,033,695, defeating Yusuf who scored 1,024,713 votes.

Meanwhile, in Bauchi State, Returning Officer Muhammed Kyari announced that the PDP polled 6,376 votes, while the APC had 5,117 in the supplementary election.

PDP’s Bala Muhammed had scored 469,512 votes while the incumbent APC governor, Muhammad Abubakar, got 465,453 votes in the main election before the Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area (LGA) result was declared inconclusive.

The winner however could not be declared, as the outcome of the Tafawa Balewa LGA is currently the subject of a suit.