APC wins Katsina re-run, Kano council polls 

• PDP alleges under-aged voting, abuses
• ‘2m registered to vote in Adamawa next year’

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) yesterday said that the All Progressives Congress (APC) won the Katsina State Federal Constituency re-run election with 2,566 votes.

In the re-run elections in 15 polling units in Mashi/Dutsi, the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) came second with 893 votes while the Peoples Redemption Party (PRP) clinched the third position with 25 votes.

Also, the APC in Kano has won Saturday’s local council elections in the state.

Chairman of Kano State Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC), Prof. Garba Ibrahim Sheka, who made the declaration at a press briefing yesterday, said the ruling party cleared all the 44 chairmanship and 484 councillorship seats.

Sheka said that 25 political parties, including the PDP, which featured one chairmanship candidate, participated in the just-concluded council elections.

He said that in the security reports received during and after the council polls, no arrest was made or any violence recorded as the elections ended peacefully.

Meanwhile, the PDP has said that the alleged resort to primitive cheating and deployment of heavily armed security forces to muscle votes for the APC in the Katsina bye-election has further shown that President Muhammadu Buhari and his party have completely lost popularity among Nigerians, even in the President’s home-state.

It also alleged that last Saturday’s Kano State Local Council election was characterised by outright cheating, open under-aged voting and ballot stuffing, describing it as a wholesome mockery of electoral process.

The party’s National Publicity Secretary, Kola Ologbondiyan, in a statement yesterday, stated that these two elections signified that the APC could not win any free and fair election, even in its supposed stronghold.

In another development, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Adamawa State, Kassim Gaidam, has said that about two million registered voters will participate in next year’s general elections slated for February 2019.

Gaidam, who spoke with The Guardian in his office yesterday in Yola, said over 170,000 voters had been registered last year and that between January and February this year, over 120,000 voters had been registered and that the exercise is still going on.