Senator Bala Mohammed of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) currently has a healthy lead over incumbent Governor Mohammed Abubakar of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the Bauchi State governorship race.
On Saturday, supplementary elections were conducted in 15 of 20 Local Government Areas (LGAs) in the state, after the result for the March 9 governorship election was declared inconclusive by Professor Mohammed Kyari, the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the state.
At the previous count, PDP’s Bala Mohammed was leading with 469,512 votes against APC’s Mohammed Abubakar, who polled 465,453 votes. The margin of difference was 4,059 votes.
However, the election at Tafawa Balewa LGA was cancelled as a result of the disruption of the election by armed hoodlums, who invaded the collation centre and carted away result sheets.
INEC had set up a committee to investigate the incident, after which it released a report on March 15 noting that it had the duplicate and original registration area results for the area in its custody. It then scheduled March 19 for resumption of the collation process for Tafawa LGA.
However, a court order resulting from a suit filed by APC had restricted the commission from continuing with the collation scheduled for March 19. The commission had, however, said the supplementary elections for the 15 other LGAs in the state would continue as scheduled on March 23, 2019.
The supplementary elections for the 15 other LGAs held as scheduled on Saturday, March 23, 2019.
At final supplementary election count on Sunday morning, Abubakar polled 5,117 votes and was defeated by the 6,376 votes secured by Bala Mohammed. PDC came a distant third with 20 votes.
Total valid votes for the 15 LGAs stood at 11,568. There were 403 rejected votes, while 11,971 votes were cast in total.
APC has polled 470,570 votes in total, while PDP has secured 475,888 votes.
The collation officer was, however, unable to declare a winner because of the case in court involving the result for Tafawa Balewa LGA.
INEC is yet to announce the result of Tafawa Balewa LGA, which has more than 100,000 registered voters.
Sahara Reporters
