In Kaduna State, the women’s wing of the Peoples Democratic Party organized a peaceful protest on Thursday to voice their displeasure with the governorship election results that the Independent National Electoral Commission in the state had announced.
Uba Sani of the All Progressives Congress was declared the winner of the March 18 election by INEC after receiving 730,002 votes, while Isah Kudan of the People’s Democratic Party received 719,196 votes, making up the closest race.
Jonathan Asake of the Labour Party received 58,283 votes to finish third, while Senator Suleiman Hunkuyi of the New Nigeria Peoples Party received only 21,405 votes, placing him in a distant fourth place.
Inscriptions on some of the placards carried by the women read, “No election rigging”, “Kaduna State has spoken”, “Give us who we voted”, and “Kaduna people elected, INEC selected”.
A former women leader in the state, Aisha Ibrahim, disclosed to journalists that residents of the state voted for Kudan and wondered why the electoral body favoured Sani of the APC.
“The people of Kaduna State came out Saturday, March 18 to massively voted for Isa Ashiru, the PDP gubernatorial candidate. Everybody heard the result and wondered why INEC should change the result in favour of the APC candidate.”
Also, former House of Assembly member, Maria Dogo, said INEC should rectify the election results from polling units.
“INEC should refer itself to the server to get the correct result of the election from every polling unit to avoid any controversy.
“It is unbecoming of INEC and we will employ every legal means to reclaim our mandate. Nigerians are tired to be taken aback 200 years ago instead of progressing and so, they can not continue robbing us of our choices,” she said.
The state chairman of the PDP, Felix Hyet, had described the APC victory as a “daylight robbery.”
He alleged that INEC was complicit in denying the people of the state what they voted for, and was inconsistent in declaring results.