By Abimbola Ogunnaike
The Kebbi State chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remove the Collation/Returning Officer for the governorship election in the state, Professor Yusuf Sa’idu for his sentiment and bias in discharging his official responsibility in the last gubernatorial election.
The Chairman of APC Kebbi State Publicity Committee for the governorship campaign, Kabiru Sani-Giant, stated this while addressing journalists in Birnin Kebbi on Sunday, 26 March, 2023.
“As a matter of urgency, we call on the INEC Chairman, Professor Mahmud Yakubu, to remove the Kebbi State guber election collation/returning officer, Professor Yusuf Saidu, because of his sentiment and bias in discharging his official responsibility in the last gubernatorial election.
“This will bring sanity to the re-run of the gubernatorial elections because the APC in the state isn’t comfortable with the collation officer due to his alliance with other political parties,” Sani-Giant said.
Sani-Giant, who said, Dr Nasir Idris, the APC governorship candidate, had already won the March 18 election with a wide margin, added that Idris was supposed to be declared winner of the election, “but the Returning Officer went ahead to declare it inconclusive.
“I, therefore, urge INEC to immediately declare our candidate as the winner of the election so that the people of Kebbi State will have peace of mind and go about their normal business”.
INEC recently declared the Kebbi Governorship election “inconclusive” because there were cancellations in 20 of the 21 Local Government Areas of Kebbi State, cutting across a number of Registration Areas (RAs) in different polling units.
According to Yakubu, when INEC aggregated the total number of collected PVCs in those polling units, it came to a total of 91,829.
However, the two leading political parties in the contest, APC and PDP polled 388,258 and 342,980 votes, respectively. The difference stands at 45,278, less than 91,829 collected PVCs in the affected areas.
