The candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party in Saturday’s presidential election, Atiku Abubakar, has defeated his opponents to win the Sokoto State elections with a total of 288,679 votes.
Atiku was keenly followed by the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Bola Tinubu, who scored a total number of 285,444 votes, while candidates of the Labour Party, Peter Obi and New Nigerian Peoples Party, Rabiu Kwankwaso, came third and fourth with a total of 6,568 and 1,300 votes respectively.
Announcing the results at exactly 2:38 am on Tuesday, the returning officer for the Presidential election in the state, Prof. Kabiru Bala, the Vice Chancellor of Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, invited party representatives to sign the results.
Responding, the Director General of the PDP campaign committee, Yusuf Suleiman, called on INEC to look into the issue of more than 400 polling units cancelled in the state.
He said about 300,000 voters in the state have been disenfranchised and that their votes could go for either of the political parties including APC, PDP, LP or even the NNPP.
Also speaking, the Director General of the APC presidential campaign council, Maigari Dingyadi, said politicians should not quote figures without recourse to INEC.
Dingyadi who is also the Minister for Police Affairs, however, urged INEC to look into the circumstances that led to the cancellation of the results.
Meanwhile, the returning officer disclosed that a total number of 133 registration areas were affected with 471 polling units in the cancellation.
He further explained that the affected areas also include 301,499 registered voters with 254,902 Permanent Voter Cards collected.
Source: The Punch
