Agaju Madugba, Katsina
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Ahmad Babba Kaita, has won the be-election for the vacant seat of the Katsina North senatorial zone held, on Saturday.
Kaita, who is a serving member of the House of Representatives (APC Kusada/Ingawa/Kankia Federal Constituency), polled 224,607 votes to beat his closest opponent, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and his elder brother, Kabir Babba Kaita, who received 59,724 votes.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer, Prof. Hudu Abdullahi of the Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria, announced the results, on Sunday.
He also listed votes scored by the other political parties who participated in the by-election as, GPN 1056, DA 796, MPN 633 and MMN 343.
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Abdullahi, who described the election process as “free and fair,” said that of the total number of 864,046 registered voters in the zone, 308,500 were accredited with 237,159 valid votes recorded and 26,050 invalid votes.
In his reaction after the announcement of the results, a former Speaker of the Katsina State House of Assembly, Alhaji Umar Gwojo Gwojo, said that, “I want to commend the voters for their faith in the APC and particularly on President Muhammad Buhari and they should be rest assured that the Senator-elect and the President will not disappoint them.”
But the reviewing the election process earlier on Saturday, Katsina State PDP chairman, Salisu Majigiri, alleged that there was ‘vote-buying’ perpetuated by the APC.
According to Majigiri, “We have evidence to prove that in 99 per cent of the polling centres, the APC engaged in vote-buying.”
However, Speaker of the Katsina State House of Assembly, Abubakar Kusada, who monitored the exercise at his Kusada Local Government Area, said that there were no manipulations of any sort as he argued that, “as you can see, everything is going on smoothly and the voter-turnout is quite impressive and I am confident that the APC will win at the end of the day.”
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The APC eventually won the election, which acting President Yemi Osinbajo had told an APC grand rally in Daura, earlier, was the party’s desire, “So that the APC will continue to maintain its majority at the Senate.
“You know that Katsina is the home of Mr. President, it means that a vote for Kaita is a vote for Buhari and you should also vote the APC candidate in memory of the late Mustapha Bukar,” Osinbajo had noted.