Kano: PDP candidate warns of ‘unprecedented political crisis’ if Ganduje is declared winner

The Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate has rejected the outcome of Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Kano, and has warned the Independent National Electoral Commission against declaring incumbent Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje winner.

The candidate, Abba Yusuf, said such announcement by INEC will throw the state into an “unprecedented political crisis” and will be resisted.

The statement came Sunday after the final results showed Mr Ganduje was ahead of Mr Yusuf in an election marred by violence, voter intimidation, and irregularities.

The collation officer in charge of the supplementary poll is computing the final official result and may make an announcement in the next 15 minutes.

Ahead of the announcement, the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Shehu Riskuwa, appealed for calm and said as far as the issue of violence was concerned, he was sure the security agents had taken note of what happened and would file their report.

The PDP candidate released the following statement a while ago:

The PDP Gubernatorial Candidate wishes to appreciate his teeming supporters who participated in the Kano Rerun elections which clearly gave victory to the People Democratic Party. Without your relentless effort, our Party would have gotten the winning vote in the first election and the Rerun respectively.

It is very unfortunate to have witnessed a gang up against democracy by the trio of the ruling APC, INEC and the Security agencies who connived attempting to orchestrate broad daylight robbery of the People’s mandate.

We want to categorically state that any desperate attempt by the already compromised INEC officials to declare Governor Abdullahi Umar Ganduje as the winner of this rerun will plunge Kano into an unprecedented political crisis. The attempt would be resisted.

We urge all relevant stakeholders at state and federal government to as a matter of urgency to call the attention of INEC on the need to immediately declare Abba Kabir Yusuf as the winner of the election, being the candidate with the highest votes in the just concluded election.

We also call on security agencies to refrain from being partisan by supporting the ruling party to aid and abate crisis.

Sign
Sanusi Bature Dawakin-Tofa
Spokesperson to PDP Gubernatorial Candidate
Engr Abba Kabir Yusuf.