Elections in AMAC, Abaji, Gwagwalada, Kuje declared inconclusive
Onyebuchi Ezigbo in Abuja
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Musa Dikko, winner of the chairmanship election for the Bwari Local Government Area.
The Returning Officer for the election in the council area, Mr. Abubakar Abba, who announced the result in Bwari yesterday, said the area council had a total of 162,786 registered voters, but that only 33,162 voters were accredited for the election.
Dikko polled 18,066 votes to defeat his closest challenger from the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Andrew Gwani, who scored 13,279 votes.
Candidates of other parties, Mr. Wada Abdu of Action Alliance (AA) and Kenneth Olabaniji of Citizens Popular Party (CPP), trailed with 93 votes and 72 votes respectively.
Apart from winning the Bwari chairmanship seat, APC also won seven councillors while PDP got one.
Collation was still in progress in the remaining two area councils as at the time of filing this report.
However, the commission has declared elections in the Abuja Municipal Area Council, Kuje, Gwagwalada and Abaji Area Councils inconclusive due to alleged mass irregularities.
Addressing the parties and stakeholders on the outcome of the AMAC election, the Returning Officer, Prof. Sunday Adodo, said the decision to declare the polls inconclusive was reached based on the fact the total number of votes in the areas elections which is 15,360 far more than the 5,000 difference in score between the two closest candidates in the chairmanship race.
In the result so far collated, APC candidate polled a total of 26,602 votes ahead of the PDP candidate who got 21,230 votes.
The total number of voters disenfranchised where elections did not hold in AMAC was put at 15,360 whereas details of the affected are, Karu -8,044 voters, Garki – 2,243 voters, Gwarinpa- 1,675 voters, Guyi – 2,628 voters, Karshi – 653 voters and Nyanya – 17 voters.
From the votes posted by the two parties, 5,372 thus separated both APC and PDP candidates, thereby warranting the declaration of inconclusive election by the Returning Officer.
INEC said it would fix new date for fresh elections in the affected areas in due course.
The commission is yet to declare winner of the council election in Kwali area council.
Elections in the six area councils in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT) took place at the weekend amid poor turn-out of the electorate in almost all parts of the capital city of Abuja.
While monitoring the election in the FCT at the weekend, THISDAY observed that most voters stayed away from the polling units with only a few number coming in trickles to perform their civic duty.
The reason for the low turn out of eligible voters recorded in almost all the polling units varied from poor sensitization, lack of interest in the governance at the third tier, the biting fuel scarcity as well as disenchantment by the populace over the state of affairs of the country.
