The Independent National Electoral Commission on Sunday released the results of the supplementary governorship election it conducted in some states after it declared the March 9 poll in the affected states inconclusive.
The states where the governorship run-off poll was held are Sokoto, Plateau, Kano, Benue and Bauchi.
But while INEC has declared governors-elect in four of the states, it has not done same in Bauchi State due to a legal reason.
In the election results declared on Sunday, the Sokoto State Governor, Aminu Tambuwal and his Benue State counterpart, Samuel Ortom, fought hard battles to emerge victorious at the governorship supplementary election conducted in their states on Saturday.
Also, Governor Simon Lalong of Plateau State and his Kano State counterpart, Abdullahi Ganduje of Kano State, were also returned elected by INEC. Lalong and Ganduje are All Progressives Congress candidates while Tambuwal and Ortom contested the election under the platform of the Peoples Democratic Party.
According to INEC, Tambuwal, a former Speaker of the House of Representatives,, won a second term with a slim margin of 342 votes, polling 512,002 votes to defeat his erstwhile deputy, Ahmed Aliyu of the APC, who garnered 511,660 votes.
The PDP had won the March 9 governorship election with 3,413 votes scoring 489,558 votes in the inconclusive poll while the APC polled 486,145. The APC, however, won the supplementary election scoring 25,515 votes to PDP’s 24,444.
Announcing the final results of the election on Sunday, the state Returning Officer, Prof. Fatimah Mukhtar, said the total registered voters were 1,887,767 and accredited voters, 1,083,413.
She put the votes cast at 1,067,994 while the number of rejected votes was 31,662.
Declaring Tambuwal the winner of the poll, the returning officer said, “Aminu Tambuwal having satisfied the constitutional requirements, is hereby declared the winner of the election.”
The hall erupted with shouts of Allahu Akbar (God is great) and Sai Mutawalle,’the governor’s traditional title.
The Resident Electoral Officer, Mallam Sadiq Musa, had earlier said the declaration of the winner would be based on a simple majority.
Before the winner was announced, there was apprehension over the late collation and transmission of results from the Kebbe Local Government Area which forced Mukhtar to suspend the declaration of the results around 3.45am on Sunday till 9am.
The results from the local government were considered vital on account of its dense voter population of 20,015 and the high number of polling units put at 35.
Meanwhile, the governor has dedicated his victory to “the resilience and unalloyed trust the people of the state reposed” in his administration.
