The just concluded Governorship election saw the emergence of Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, the Kauran Bauchi, as the governor-elect of Bauchi State.
Bala Mohammed emerged victorious in a keenly contested election that brought Bauchi to a standstill.
Senator Mohammed will go down in Bauchi history Bauchi as the first candidate to beat an incumbent. Bauchi State was united in voting Bala Mohammed as their next governor. This is evident in the way various stakeholders across all sectors supported him.
Despite the seeming insurmountable hurdles he faced before, during and after the election, he never wavered in his conviction that he would be elected.
The drama started with the gubernatorial and House of Assembly elections held on 9 March, 2019. The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate who is also the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, was leading in the results of 18 Local Government Areas collated with a narrow margin.
APC won in 13 local government areas which include Giade, Warji, Ningi, Jama’are, Itas/Gadau, Katagum, Gamawa, Shira, Toro, Kirfi, Darazo, Ganjuwa and Dass.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) however won in six local governments which include: Bauchi, Bogoro, Alkaleri, Misau, Dambam and Zaki local government areas. The icing that cemented PDP’s eventual victory came from Bauchi LGA when PDP got a whopping 102,467 against APC’s 56,663.
With the massive support from Bauchi LGA, the PDP candidate, Bala Muhammed, was in the lead with 4,059 votes. The PDP had 469,512 votes while the APC candidate, Governor Mohammed Abubakar, got 465,453 votes.
With this lead, the result from Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area was rejected by the electoral umpire, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as a result of the complaint filed by the local government’s Returning Officer, Mrs. Dominion Anosike, who said the collation was done under duress and allegedly disrupted by thugs even though the election was free and fair at the polling units.
She said that she started collation at around 11:00 pm and that hoodlums arrived around 3:00am, held them hostage and stole forms on which the results would be written.
There were arguments regarding issues raised by the agents of the PDP and APC over the result.
After deliberations from both sides, the state Returning Officer, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, rejected the results. The exercise was therefore, declared inconclusive.
“As far as I am concerned, there is no result for Tafawa Balewa,” he said.
With the cancellation of the Tafawa Balawa result, INEC set up a committee to look into reasons why the election was inconclusive. The committee sat and decided it has approved the resumption, conclusion and announcement of the result of the Tafawa Balewa Local Government in relation to the governorship election.
In two separate statements issued in Abuja and signed by a National Commissioner of INEC, Festus Okoye, the commission also announced the change of the Collation Officer for Tafawa Balewa Local Government who reportedly withdrew due to threats to her life.
The statement reads: “On the 12th day of March 2019, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) considered a report submitted by the Resident Electoral Commissioner for Bauchi State on the disruption of the collation process at the Tafawa Balewa Collation Centre which led to the cancelation of results for the entire Local Government.
“The Commission found that there are issues that need further investigation and set up a committee for that purpose: The findings of the committee are as follows: The Governorship and State Assembly Elections were held on the 9th March 2019 in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area and the votes scored by candidates were announced at the Polling Units and collated at the 11 Registration Areas of the Local Government.”
It added that halfway into the Local Government collation, armed gangs attacked the collation centres and destroyed the Local Government Result Sheet (EC8C) and some collated results from the registration areas. The results of 7 out of 11 registration areas for governorship and 6 out of 11 for State Assembly elections, according to the statement, were affected.
INEC guidelines provide that where violent disruption affects collation in this manner, results should be regenerated from duplicate copies on a replacement result sheet.
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It added that the collation officer, under pressure from party agents who could not wait for the arrival of a replacement result sheet, decided to collate the result on an available RA result sheet instead of the replacement LGA result sheet.
“When the result was presented at the State Governorship Collation Centre, the Returning Officer rejected the regenerated result because it was on a wrong result sheet.
“The Investigation Committee established that the result in Polling Units and registration areas are available and in safe custody. The investigation committee also established that the number of cancelled votes for the 4 polling units in Ningi Local Government Area which was recorded as 25,330 in form EC40G (1) was incorrect. The actual figure is 2,533. Consequently, the Commission has taken the following decisions:
“Approved the resumption and conclusion of the collation of results of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area in relation to the Governorship election as the duplicate and original registration area results are available.”
The committee approved the resumption, conclusion and announcement of the result of the Tafawa Balewa State Constituency.
The committee also approved the appointment of a new Collation/Returning Officer for Tafawa Balewa Local Government to continue and conclude the collation process in place of the original Collation Officer who withdrew from the exercise citing threats to her life and those of her family members.”
It however announced Tuesday, 19 March 2019 as a new date of the Collation process for Tafawa Balewa Local Government.
The Commission directed that the error in the total number of cancelled votes in four polling units in Ningi Local Government Area should be corrected from 25,330 to 2,533.
With the announcement of the resumption of collation of result, Governor Abubakar acted swiftly and got a restraining order from a Federal High Court to stop the collation of the result for Tafawa Balewa. INEC then halted the re-collation of governorship election results following the court order stopping the commission from carrying out the exercise.
The Bauchi State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi, said the body had received the Court Order from Justice Inyang Ekwo and had stopped the collation process.
He, however, disclosed that it would go ahead with the collation of the state House of Assembly elections result for Tafawa Balewa which was not affected by the court order.
The supplementary election held in parts of Bauchi saw the PDP winning the governorship supplementary elections. The election was conducted on 23 March, 2019 in 36 Polling Units across 15 local government areas in the state. The state’s INEC Returning Officer, Professor Mohammed Kari disclosed that the PDP candidate, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, got 6,376 votes, while Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar of the APC got 5,117 votes.
Senator Bala Mohammed was declared winner of the election after the Tafawa Balewa result was regenerated and collated.
Senator Mohammed defeated the incumbent, Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar of the APC.
Senator Bala Mohammed got 515,113 votes against outgoing Governor Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar who got 500,625 votes.
The PDP candidate got 39,225 votes in Tafawa Balewa local government area while his APC opponent got 30,055.
The Tafawa Balewa local government area elections result was presented by the newly appointed Returning Officer, Dr Musa Dahiru, a lecturer with the Federal University Kashere, Gombe State. He replaced Mrs Dominion Anosike, the former local government area returning officer who collated the results after the election.
According to him, Tafawa Balewa has 11 wards or registration areas with 139,240 registered voters and 74,181 voters were accredited for the election held on 11 March, 2019.
He further disclosed that a total of 73,779 votes were cast with 73,041 valid votes while 738 votes were rejected.
Bauchi State has 2,462,843 registered voters and 1,143,019 voters were accredited for the governorship election.
1,133,966 votes were cast in the governorship election with 1,111,406 valid votes recorded while a total of 22,560 votes were rejected.
Announcing the results on Monday night, the state INEC Returning Officer, Professor Mohammed Kyari said “the PDP candidate, Senator Bala Abdulkadir Mohammed, having scored the highest number of votes is returned elected.”
