PDP rejects INEC’s declaration of Bauchi Gov polls as inconclusive

The Peoples Democratic Party in Bauchi has rejected INEC’s declaration of the state’s governorship election as inconclusive.

The Returning Officer of the elections in Bauchi, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, on Sunday declared that the election in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area of the state was inconclusive.

According to him, the PDP candidate, Senator Bala Mohammed, got 469,512 votes to defeat his closest rival, the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubabakar of the All progressives Congress, who got 465,453 votes.

He had said that the margin between the two candidates were 4,059 votes, having cancelled the votes of Tafawa Balewa LG which had been 139,240.

Kyari added that the number of cancelled votes in the elections, even without that of Tafawa Balewa LGA, was 45,312 and had declared: “I, therefore, based on Section 26 (53) of the Electoral Act, declare the elections in Bauchi State as inconclusive.”

He also directed INEC to conduct a re-run elections in the affected LGA within the next 21 days.

But speaking at a Press conference at the NUJ Secretariat, Bauchi on Monday, the PDP chairman, Hamza Akuyam, said the election had confirmed their earlier claims that the APC was planning to rig the elections.

Akuyam, who was in company with the Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara; the DG Campaign of the party, Senators Abdul Ningi, Nazif Gamawa, Isa Misau and the PDP bigwigs in Bauchi State, called for the immediate redeployment of the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Ibrahim Abdullahi; and the Commissioner of Police, Ali Janga.