Party Agents, on Sunday night, caused a scene at the collation centre in Kano State, as the Returning Officer, Prof Ahmad Doko Ibrahim, was disallowed to retreat to a private room for final collation.
In an online video, the RO was seen saying he wants to go into a private room to do the final collation, but political party agents rejected such arrangement.
He said, “I think I would need an environment other than this place. I have plenty of individual Polling Units and I think I would need an exclusive environment to do this as quickly as I can.”
Several party agents responded by saying, “in the interest of transparency, fairness and honesty” it would be better for the collation to be done in public viewing.
However, the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Abdul Zango, intervened and pleaded with the party agents to grant the RO permission to retreat to a more conducive atmosphere, maintaining that the commission remains neutral.
He was finally allowed to leave and was expected to return by 4:30am on Monday morning.
Upon reconvening this morning, the governorship candidate of the New Nigeria Peoples Party, Abba Kabir-Yusuf, was declared the winner of the election, polling 1,019,602 votes against his closest rival, Nasir Gawuna of the All Progressive Congress, who polled 890,705 votes.
