From Olanrewaju Lawal Birnin Kebbi

Kebbi State All Progressives Congress (APC) has appealed to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to remove the Collation/Returning Officer for governorship election, Yusuf Sa’idu.

APC Kebbi State Publicity Committee for governorship campaign Chairman, Kabiru Sani-Giant, while addressing newsmen in Birnin Kebbi, yesterday, said the call was because of his alliance with a political party.

“As a matter of urgency, we call on the INEC Chairman, Mahmud Yakubu, to remove Sa’idu, because of his sentiment and bias in discharging his official responsibility in the last gubernatorial election.

“This will bring sanity to the re-run of the gubernatorial elections because the APC in the state is not comfortable with the collation officer due to his alliance with other political parties.”

He said the APC governorship candidate, Nasir Idris, had already won the March 18 election with a wide margin and added that their candidate was supposed to be declared winner of the election, “but the collation/returning officer went ahead to declare it inconclusive.”

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Sani-Giant, who is also the national coordinator of Tinubu/Shettima, said the results from the election showed APC’s candidate polled 388,258, while his closest rival, PDP candidate, retired Aminu Bande, polled 342,980 votes.

“Going by this result, there is no need to declare the election inconclusive. Our candidate has won straight away, because he is leading with 45,278 votes.

“In some states, candidates were declared winners when the margin was a fraction of that. There is no need for a supplementary election,” he said,

He said INEC cancelled election results in some polling units because of over voting and violence.

“Remember, the PDP candidate’s wife heads a department in INEC. It was also the PDP that triggered violence in some of the polling units because they knew such polling units are our strongholds.

“I, therefore, urge INEC to declare our candidate as the winner of the election so that the people of Kebbi State will have peace of mind and go about their normal business,” he said.