SAN FRANCISCO, August 13, (THEWILL) – The All Progressives Congress candidate (APC), Lawan Gumau, has won the Bauchi South Senatorial District bye-election, held on Saturday.
Announcing the result in Bauchi on Sunday, the Returning Officer, Prof. Ahmed Sarkin-Pagam, said Gumau scored 119,489 votes to defeat eight other contestants
Gumau, a member of the House of Representatives beat Ladan Salihu of the Peoples Democratic Party, who got 50,256 votes and the immediate past governor of the state, Isa Yuguda of the Green Party of Nigeria, who polled 33,079 votes.
He said other candidates were Haruna Ayuba of ADC who garnered 1,754 votes; Aminu Tukur of APP who scored 11,717 votes; Usman Hassan of KP with 240 votes; and Huseini Umar of NNPP who scored 22,896 votes.
The Returning Officer gave the scores of the remaining candidates as Usman Chaledi of PDC, 1,203 votes; Ladan Salihu of PDP, 50,256 votes, and Mrs. Maryam Begel of SDP, 3,800 votes.
The APC candidate won in six of the seven local councils that make up the district, with Salihu winning in Bogoro local government, the home base of Speaker Yakubu Dogara.
In Bogoro, Salihu, a former broadcaster, got 6,646 votes as against the 3,992 votes scored by the APC candidate.
Collation of the results of the bye-election was slowed down by the heavy rain that fell Saturday evening and the election itself was marred by many incidents.
Massive over voting was recorded in Bogoro and Bauchi councils, leading to the cancellation of over 25,000 votes. In Bogoro, 10,217 votes were cancelled and 15, 017 in Bauchi.
There were also cases of ballot box snatching in 13 units in Toro. In Alkaleri local council, 16,298 votes were cancelled in eight wards and 40 polling units over fracas, over voting, and non-usage of card readers.
The bye-election arose following the death of Senator Ali Wakili in March.
