BREAKING: INEC declares Kano governorship election inconclusive

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the outcome of Saturday’s governorship election in Kano State as inconclusive.

The announcement was made Monday evening by the state’s Returning Officer, Bello Shehu, a professor.

Mr Shehu said the election is inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes is higher than the difference in votes scored between the two leading candidates: Abba Yusuf of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and incumbent governor Abdullahi Ganduje of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

Announcing the results, Mr Shehu said while the PDP candidate polled 1,014,474 votes, Mr Ganduje of the APC scored 987,819 votes leaving a difference of 26,655 votes.

He also said the total number of votes cancelled across 22 local government areas including Gama ward of Nasarawa local government is 141,694 votes.

The returning officer said based on the provisions of the law, he has to declare the election inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes is much higher than the difference between the two major candidates.

Kano thus joins a growing list of states where elections have been declared inconclusive. The list includes Benue, Plateau, Adamawa, Bauchi and Sokoto states.