- Engineer Abba Kabir Yusuf said he has rejected the outcome of the Kano state governorship election
- The PDP governorship candidate claimed the election was marred by irregularities
- Yusuf said the people of Kano have also rejected the result declaring Ganduje as winner
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governorship candidate in Kano state, Engineer Abba Kabir Yusuf, has said that the state election will not stand.
Governor Abdullahi Ganduje was declared winner of the governorship election following the rerun election.
In an interview with Daily Trust, Yusuf said the election has been rejected by the [arty and people of Kano state.
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Asked if he gave the go-ahead to his lawyers to challenge the result in court, he said:
“Definitely, because of the so-called election that was not recognized by the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria and the Electoral Act and was marred by violence, maiming, killing of innocent people and so on. Definitely the result that came out was so unfortunate that we just have to go to court.
“Not only me, the senator and the PDP, in fact the entire Kano people have rejected it in totality. Ninety per cent of Nigerians have also rejected it. The international community, the EU observers, international observers, and everybody has rejected it. So it is not the issue of me or my principal or the party, everybody knows that justice has not been done and that is why everybody is unhappy.
“The genesis of this problem is that on March 9, there was an election that was credible in Kano State whereby I, as the candidate of the PDP, emerged as the winner. Why I said I emerged as the winner is because I had the highest number of votes. I was having one million plus votes and my opponent, who is the current governor of Kano, was following me with much less votes. The difference between us was over 26,000 votes. All of a sudden, as the collation at the local government was going on – don’t forget that the election proper was conducted in all the polling units in Gama ward and people participated; men women, everybody. And there was collation of results by the collation officers who took their own results sheets to the local government collation center. While the local government collation was being finalized, there was this group of thugs, led by the current Kano State deputy governor, commissioner for local governments and the chairman of that particular local government. They attacked the collation center; they attacked our people and tore some of the collated results. That was where the problem started and luckily for us, they were apprehended, taken to the police headquarters in Kano and handed over to the AIG in charge of Zone 1 in Kano.
“Unfortunately, at the state collation center when we expected the REC, the so-called professor, to announce the results since it was announced at the polling unit, he didn’t. Nobody, according to INEC guidelines, has the right to reject any result that was presented except the Returning Officer.
“Unfortunately, this man because of his own ill-conceived intention decided to cancel the Gama ward result and that was what caused the whole problem.”
“Secondly, there were cases of over voting and thumb printing by the APC agents and everybody knows. So many boxes were over stuffed and that also led to the process of cancellation in some of the polling units. The Resident Electoral Commissioner then announced the results as inconclusive. To us and many people, that shouldn’t have been because he has no right whatsoever to cancel results that had been collated and handed over.
“So that was what led to the problem but we all agreed that despite the illegality as peace loving people, we decided to go for rerun. On March 23, there was a rerun and we had thought with the security arrangement the police were going to be neutral. But we just woke up to see thugs in their hundreds of vehicles coming into Kano and neighbouring local governments that were affected by the rerun. Thugs that came from different states of the federation, especially the northern states with dangerous weapons, they occupied all the polling units. We were complaining to the police but they remained adamant. They were watching them; in fact, in some places the police patrol teams were escorting them because they were strangers in the state and didn’t know anywhere. Some of them were even accommodated at the Government House and were being driven out in droves, 35, 50 vehicles all armed. In fact, there was a lot of disenfranchisement and before you knew it, they occupied all the polling units and they were those that voted because the actual voters were scared away. Majority of our voters are women but they were scared away and prevented from exercising their legitimate rights. In all the local governments, these strangers maimed and killed people and overstuffed the boxes.
“All these were perpetrated under the very eyes of the police. It was so unfortunate that the Federal Government had to send a DIG who is not committed to peaceful coexistence of Nigeria and of course, Kano people. Posting that man was the most unfortunate decision the Federal Government ever took because he was so openly biased and did a lot of things that people were disenfranchised.
“The first election was declared inconclusive because there was an attack at a local government collation center. Now you arrange for a rerun which became the most violent rerun where people were maimed and even killed yet you said that election was correct. It means either you don’t know what you are doing or you have been compromised. That is why I said the so-called professors who deliberately connived with the APC and security agencies to deprive us of our legitimate votes. This is why we said, as far as we are concerned, there was no supplementary election and why we went to court is for the courts return our mandate. In one local government, a serving commissioner went with about five patrol teams and they shot in the air and sent everybody away. There was no single voter that will tell you that they voted. The police and that commissioner seized all the votes and announced what they wanted to be announced. In another local government, the total registered voters were 360 while the accredited voters were about 270 yet after the voting, the APC got all the 360 votes while the PDP got zero. Not even member of the state assembly from that area or a single stakeholder voted for us.”
Meanwhile, the emir of Kano, Alhaji Muhammadu Sanusi II on Saturday, March 30, organised a special prayer session at the Kano Central Mosque for Governor Abdullahi Ganduje’s administration as he is about to enter into his second term in office.
The session was attended by district heads, chief imam of Kano, scholars, members of the State Executive Council, special advisers among others, News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports.
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