The candidates, running under the banner of the "Rescue and Rebuild Gubernatorial Candidates Forum," claimed they disagreed with the outcome because a significant number of votes were annulled in the majority of the state's local government areas.
The Independent National Electoral Commission's declaration of Senator Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress as the state's next governor has been rejected by seven candidates for governor in Kaduna State.
The candidates, running under the banner of the "Rescue and Rebuild Gubernatorial Candidates Forum," claimed they disagreed with the outcome because a significant number of votes were annulled in the majority of the state's local government areas.
Prior to Saturday's governorship election, the nine candidates for the governorship supported Isah Kudan of the Peoples Democratic Party.
They are Young Progressives Party, Allied Peoples Movement, Action Peoples Party, National Rescue Movement, Action Alliance, the All Progressives Grand Alliance, and the Action Democratic Party.
It had earlier reported that the state INEC Returning Officer, Prof. Lawal Suleiman Bilbis, from Usman Danfodio University, Sokoto, had announced that Sani of the APC polled 730,002 votes while his closest rival, Isah Ashiru Kudan of the PDP scored 719,196 votes.
Bilbis had added that the Labour Party governorship candidate, Jonathan Asake polled 58,283 to come third while the New Nigeria Peoples Party candidate, Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi, came a distant fourth with 21,405 votes while rejected votes stood at 19,114.
But while addressing a joint press conference in Kaduna on Wednesday, chairman of the forum and governorship candidate of the YPP, Ambassador Sanin Yaya, said they would employ the service of legal practitioners to fight their battle to the end in order for the right thing to be done by the INEC.
He said, “We wish to address you all and other loyal voters in the state on the purported election result declared by INEC which is unacceptable to us and many as well. A call on INEC to do the needful on the purported result announced which declared the APC Candidate as winner in the just concluded election.
“On this, we wish to refer you to the Electoral Act 2022.”
He added, “Again, we wish to state clearly that in many polling units in all the local governments Form EC40G were filled by Returning Officers and the number of registered voters who collected their Permanent voters Card in these polling units are more than the margin of lead/win in the governorship election in Kaduna state.
“As well, in every massive cancellation of election result conducted in many polling units during the governorship election in almost all the local governments in the state, especially in Kudan LGA where the election results in two Wards were not entered in the collated governorship election result despite the fact that election was conducted in the polling units of the two wards and the result posted on INEC Result Viewing portal.
“Therefore, despite the fact that INEC is an umpire charged with conducting a free, fair, and credible election, our position is that the ruling party has compromised INEC.
“We, the under-listed political parties, are pleading with INEC to uphold the law and to immediately revoke the earlier-announced governorship result. Accept the assurances of our effort to save Democracy while we await INEC’s immediate action.”