The governorship election in Kano remained deadlocked Monday night as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) failed to declare the winner between Governor Abdullahi Ganduje and his challenger, Engineer Abba Kabir-Yusuf of the Peoples Democratic Party.

INEC ruled that the election was inconclusive.

The Returning Officer for the Governorship election in the state, Prof. Bibi Shehu gave the ruling after the compilation of the election results from the 44 Local Government Areas in the state on Monday in Kano.

According to him, the declaration of the election as inconclusive is in accordance with section 26 of the INEC Act.

He said the number of cancelled votes cast is higher than the margin between the candidate with the highest votes and the runner up.

He explained that the difference between the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Abba Kabir-Yusuf, who leads in the votes declared, and the APC candidate, Gov. Abdullahi Ganduje, who came second, was 26,000 votes, while the votes cancelled were 128,572.

He said that INEC would fix a date to conduct election in 172 polling units, where the election was cancelled due to disturbances, over voting and non usage of the card reader machine.

The returning officer added that the election would also hold in Gama ward with over 40,000 registered voters whose result sheets got missing.

Shehu disclosed that PDP scored 1,014,474, and the APC had 987,819 votes, adding that 2,155,128 votes were recorded as valid and 49,761 rejected.

The Returning Officer said that the total registered voters in the state is 5,249, 989 while the total accredited voters was 2,211,528 and the total votes cast were 2,184,889. (NAN)

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