Wamakko, APC Candidate Aliyu, Congratulate Tambuwal
The All Progressives Congress (APC) governorship candidate, Ahmed Aliyu and Senator Aliyu Wamakko, have congratulated Governor Aminu Tambuwal of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) on his electoral victory in the Sokoto State gubernatorial race concluded on March 23.
Both political actors in the Seat of the Caliphate were reported to have called Governor Tambuwal on Sunday to congratulate him on a well-fought battle.
The Twitter handle of the Sokoto Government House revealed the congratulatory calls, moments after the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) formally declared Tambuwal winner of the election. He won by a slim margin of 342 votes.
Aliyu was Tambuwal’s deputy until Tambuwal dumped the APC to rejoin his old party, the PDP, where he contested for the party’s presidential ticket during the November 2018 primaries held in Port Harcourt, the Rivers State capital.
On his part, Aliyu resigned from the government to become the APC candidate that pitted him against his former boss at the general elections.
Interestingly too, Senator Wamakko was Tambuwal’s predecessor, who eased Tambuwal’s path to become the State governor in 2015.
According to the Chief Collation/Returning Officer, Professor Fatima Mukhtar, Tambuwal of PDP secured the highest votes of 512,002, defeating his close rival Alhaji Ahmad Aliyu of APC who polled 511, 660 votes.
“PDP candidate, Aminu Tambuwal having scored the highest votes in the election, is hereby declared winner and returned elected according to law” Mukhtar said.
Prof Mukhtar, who is the Vice Chancellor of Federal University, Dutse, Jigawa State, said the votes were tallied along with previous ones recorded during the March 9 election that was declared inconclusive because the vote differential between Tambuwal and his opponent was lower than the cancelled votes in the election.
The total number of registered voters was 1, 887, 767 while 1, 083, 413 voters were accredited.
The Returning Officer had explained that the total number of valid votes was 1,036,332; the total number of rejected votes was 31, 662; and the number of total votes cast was 1, 067, 994.
According to her, during the re-run election, PDP’s Tambuwal polled 22, 444 votes while APC’s Aliyu scored 25, 515 in the 135 polling units where supplementary elections were conduced.
She further explained that 49 candidates from other participating parties shared the remaining votes cast.
However, the APC agent at the collation centre, Alhaji Maigari Dingyadi raised the complaints the party made to INEC earlier about the malfunctioning card reader at a polling unit in Tambuwal.
Dingyadi added that election was repeated at the polling unit, after lawful election was conducted on March 9.
The PDP agent, Alhaji Umar Bature, dismissed the objections on the ground that the collation centre was not the right placeto lodge the complaint.
Prof. Mukhtar noted the complaint and said that it would be reflected in the final report. – NAN
