By John Mkom

The governorship election held on the 11th of April in Taraba state was widely peaceful although there was pockets of hitches in some selected areas.

The hitches were mostly cases of over voting against the number of accreditation, snatching of Smart Card Readers and other electoral materials among other acts of violence.

Though eleven political parties contested for the governorship seat of the state, only three candidates were reckoned to be have serious prospects in the contest.

The trio included Dickson Darius Ishaku of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, Senator Aisha Alhassan of the All Progressives Congress, APC and David Sabo Kente of the Social Democratic Party, SDP. In the end it turned into a two horse race of the PDP and APC candidates.

The Returning Officer for the governorship election in the state Prof. Muhamed Kyari at the end of the polls, declared the election inconclusive on the ground that the number of cancelled votes was higher than the gap which PDP gave to the APC candidate.

Alhassan

The cancelation affected 10 out the 16 local government areas of the state, the areas affected were -Bali-20 Polling Units with registration of 14,187. Donga- 165 Polling Units with registration of 85,657.  Jalingo- 1 Pooling Unit with registration of 1,185. Karim-Lamido-9 Pooling Units with registration of 5,176. Kurmi- 1 Pooling Unit with registration of 753.

Others are- Takum-12 Pooling Units with registration of 11,441. Ussa- 4 Pooling Units with registration of 3, 085. Wukari- 4 Pooling Units with registration of 3,460. Yoro- 1 Pooling Unit with registration of 1,043. Zing- 1 Pooling Unit with registration of 738.

There was wide condemnation on the cancelation on the 165 pooling units in Donga Local government area and the 5 pooling units in Takum.

The Returning Officer in Takum presented the local government result and told the state returning officer that only a pooling unit was cancelled in the local government area.

He further told Prof. Kyari that though there were complaints by the APC agent on about five other pooling units, he, however, affirmed that the complaints were not taken as serious and as such dismissed.

“I adviced them to get reasonable evidence and forward their complaint to the state office of INEC”, the Takum local government returning officer told Muhamed Kyari while presenting the local government result at the Collation Center in Jalingo”

The results were already submitted by the Takum returning officer but the state returning officer Prof. Muhamed Kyari ordered that the result from the 5 pooling units be deducted from the already submitted result of Takum local government area.

Ishaku-Darius

In Donga local government area, the returning officer said there was cancellations in 5 pooling units, the state returning officer therefore ordered that the 165 pooling units be cancelled.

The development sparked heated argument between the PDP agent at the state level and the state returning officer.

After the cancelations   of a total of 127,123 ballots across the 10 local government areas, the PDP led with 317,198 as against APC’s 262,473 votes.

PDP chieftains have complained that the areas mostly affected by the cancellations were their strongholds like in Donga local government area where the party scored 37,069 as against APC which scored 10,087.

The election in Donga local government area may be the deciding factor in the re-run because the whole of the local government was cancelled. The area politically has been under the control of Sen. Bwacha a PDP Senator.

PDP also defeated APC in Wukari, Kurmi, Karim-Lamido, Takum, Zing, Yoro,Kurmi, Ussa. In Bali local government area where APC defeated PDP , Suntai Ward, the base of the ailing governor, Danbaba Suntai was also found to have ailed in the conduct of the election leading to the cancellation of the polls in that area.