As President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Presidential candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Atiku Abubakar, are battling for the political soul of Sokoto State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is likely to announce the outcome of the presidential poll today.
Local sources say Atiku has won Silame and Isa Local Government Areas of Sokoto, while Buhari won Wurno.
Results of the three councils were declared at the presidential election collation centre on Sunday night.
In Silame, Atiku polled 13, 949 votes and Buhari scored 10, 910 out of 25,875 votes cast during last Saturday’s Presidential and National Assembly elections.
The Silame Local Government Returning Officer, Dr Yarima Musa of Pharmaceutical Science Department of Usmanu Danfodio University Sokoto presented the result. He said 675 votes were invalidated while other remaining votes were shared among the participating parties accordingly.
The Returning Officer of Wurno Local Government Area, Dr Francis Patrick, said APC scored 20, 307 while PDP scored 9, 847 out of 33, 048 total votes cast in the presidential election.
Prof. Bello Zaki-Abubakar, the Returning Officer of Isa Local Government Area said PDP scored 17, 892 votes while APC obtained 15, 264 votes out of the 35, 372 valid votes .
However, an agent of APC, Abdurahman Sani, objected to the admissibility of the result because no voting took place at ‘Yanfako and Kagara Makaranta polling units as the residents had relocated following threats by bandits.
The Chief Returning Officer of the state, Prof. Yahuza Bello, who is the Vice Chancellor of Bayero University Kano directed the question to Council’s Electoral Officer, Mr Abubakar Aliyu.
Aliyu said he received the complaint letter and sought advice from the security officers.
He claimed the election materials, on the advice of the traditional ruler of the area, were taken to Kamarawa village, where voting commenced. He said he later directed the election officials to relocate voting to the stipulated places.
Prof. Bello said the incident report would include the explanation in his submission, according the electoral regulation.
The results of the remaining 20 local government areas are being collated
However, INEC on Sunday adjourned the announcement of results of the presidential election till 11am this Monday.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, made the announcement after declaring the collation centre open. ‘’The collation centre has been declared open. At the moment no state collation officer has arrived’’, Yakubu said.
Earlier, he had said the exercise would commence at 6pm, pointing out that the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Ekiti state was on his way to the International Conference Centre (ICC) in Abuja with the results of the state, giving the impression that the announcement would commence with the results from Ekiti.
According to him, ‘’we expect the state collation officers for the presidential election to start arriving the national collation centre later today and early morning tomorrow. Ekiti has already concluded the process. The state collation officer as we speak is on his way. They have also concluded the senatorial and house of representatives and have since made declaration of the winners.’’
Meanwhile, the PDP has demanded the unconditional release of its member, Buba Galadima, who was allegedly arrested by operatives of the Department of State Security (DSS), on Sunday.
The PDP National Chairman, Uche Secondus, in a statement in Abuja, said that the party condemned the arrest in the strongest possible terms and described Galadima a ‘patriot’, whose patriotism had been previously and strongly highlighted by various Nigerians including President Muhammadu Buhari.
‘’What crime has he committed? I answer my own question and say none. Galadima is constitutionally guaranteed a right of freedom of speech and freedom after the speech.’’ Secondus said that there were issues of concern in the country that no action had been taken by the law enforcement authorities, ‘’yet a patriot and pro-democracy activist is arrested’’.
He expressed concern that the APC Presidential Campaign Council called for the arrest of Galadima at noon on Sunday and the arrest was duly carried out by the DSS an hour later, adding, ‘’I call for the immediate release of Galadima by the DSS, even as I remind the service and other security agencies that their oath of allegiance was sworn to Nigeria and not to the APC.’’
