INEC concludes emergency meetings, complies with Supreme Court verdict on Zamfara 2019 elections

*Zamfara PDP beneficiary of another Otedola scenario in Nigerian politics – Respondent

Nigeria’s electoral umpire, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has ended its emergency meetings on a judgement Friday, which nullified the electoral victories of the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) and re-awarded them to governorship and legislative candidates of Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).

The INEC, in an address to the press Saturday by its Chairman Professor Mahmood Yakubu, traced the problem with APC on the state leading to the litigations that followed and concluded that all PDP candidates were returned and would be issued their certificates of return on Monday 27 May 2019.

By implication, the APC by the Zamfara development has suffered a huge setback which reduces the strength of its majority claim at the Ninth National Assembly and at the Nigeria Governors’ Forum (NGF).

The DEFENDER gathered that APC’s stronghold of Zamfara is not in doubt but that internal wranglings within the party which emanated from its leadership inability to use political capacity in addressing the issues should take the blames.

It would be recalled APC’s crisis started manifesting with congresses and primaries during which the Adams Oshiomhole-led National Working Committee (NWC) was accused of being used by a National Leader of the party to impose candidates loyal to him in all the states.

Resisting this the governor, AbdulAziz Yari, threatened Oshiomhole and his NWC not to step their feet on the ground of Zamfara.

The Zamfara experience has however been another Michael Otedola scenario repeating itself with PDP candidates being the major beneficiaries of the failure of APC’s leadership impropriety in the state.

Otedola’s only luck to become governor of Lagos State in 1991 was because the Femi Agbalajobi/Dapo Sarumi feud was allowed by Social Democratic Party (SDP) politicians to thrive unresolvably. Lagos was a stronghold of SDP in Nigerian politics just like Zamfara in current reality is a major stronghold of APC.

Read details of the INEC statement below:

TEXT OF PRESS CONFERENCE ADDRESSED BY THE HON. CHAIRMAN, INDEPENDENT NATIONAL ELECTORAL COMMISSION (INEC), PROFESSOR MAHMOOD YAKUBU, ON THE SUPREME COURT DECISION ON CANDIDATES OF THE ALL PROGRESSIVES CONGRESS (APC) IN THE 2019 GENERAL ELECTIONS IN ZAMFARA STATE HELD AT THE CONFERENCE ROOM, INEC HEADQUARTERS, ABUJA, ON SATURDAY 25TH MAY 2019

Ladies and Gentlemen

1.​First, let me welcome all of you to this Press Conference. The reason for addressing you today is to provide an update on the recent decision of the Supreme Court regarding the candidates fielded by the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Zamfara State for the 2019 general elections.

2.​It is important to provide a background to the legal process that culminated in the Supreme Court decision on 24th May 2019. You may all recall that the Commission issued the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2019 general elections on 9th January 2018, over one year in advance. Among other activities, the conduct of party primaries was scheduled to take place between 18th August and 7th October 2018. Unfortunately, the APC did not conduct its primaries in Zamfara State within this stipulated time and the Commission duly informed the party that it would not be in a position to present candidates for elections in the State. Subsequently, various interested parties, including the APC itself, approached the court over the decision of the Commission. Just before the election, the subsisting court judgment at the time ordered the Commission to include the APC on the ballot for the Governorship, National Assembly and State Assembly elections, which the Commission complied with.

3.​However, since the elections were completed, a Court of Appeal judgment and now a Supreme Court judgment have determined that the APC did not conduct valid primaries for the elections in question. In its judgment delivered on 24th May 2019, the Supreme Court, having determined that the APC did not conduct valid primaries, said that the votes cast for the party in all the elections in question were “wasted” and ordered the Commission to recognize the runners-up as the winners. This judgment affects the positions of Governor and Deputy-Governor, three Senatorial, seven Federal and twenty-four State Assembly Constituencies.

4.​Following the judgment of the Supreme Court, the Commission has met in two emergency sessions and taken briefings from our lawyers and staff on the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment. While the legislative elections (Senatorial, House of Representatives and State House of Assembly elections) are straight forward to deal with because they entail first-past-the-post or simple majority of votes, the Governorship election is determined not just by majority votes but also spread in accordance with Section 179 (2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). This means that we had to first discount the votes cast for the APC at the elections and then carefully rework the spread by Local Government Areas based on the new valid votes.

5.​In compliance with the Supreme Court judgment, the Commission has now determined the winners of the elections in Zamfara State as follows:

Governorship
S/N
POSITION
NAME OF ELECTED CANDIDATE
GENDER
PARTY
1
GOVERNOR
BELLO MOHAMMED MATAWALLE
MALE
PDP
2
DEPUTY GOVERNOR
MAHDI ALIYU GUSAU
MALE
PDP

Senatorial
S/N
NAME OF SENATORIAL DISTRICT
NAME OF ELECTED CANDIDATE
GENDER
PARTY
1
ZAMFARA NORTH
ALHAJI YA’U SAHABI
MALE
PDP
2
ZAMFARA CENTRAL
MOHAMMED HASSAN
MALE
PDP
3
ZAMFARA WEST
LAWALI HASSAN ANKA
MALE
PDP

House of Representatives
S/N
NAME OF FEDERAL CONSTITUENCY
NAME OF ELECTED CANDIDATE
GENDER
PARTY
1
KAURAN NAMODA/BIRNIN MAGAJI
UMAR SANI DAN-GALADIMA
MALE
PDP
2
SHINKAFI/ZURMI
BELLO HASSAN SHINKAFI
MALE
PDP
3
GUSAU/TSAFE
KABIRU AMADU
MALE
PDP
4
BUNGUDU/MARU
SHEHU AHMED
MALE
PDP
5
ANKA/TALATA MAFARA
KABIRU YAHAYA
MALE
PDP
6
BAKURA/MARADUN
AHMED MUHAMMAD BAKURA
MALE
PDP
7
GUMMI/BUKKUYUM
SULAIMAN ABUBAKAR GUMI
MALE
PDP

State House of Assembly
S/N
NAME OF STATE CONSTITUENCY
NAME OF ELECTED CANDIDATE
GENDER
PARTY
1
KAURA NAMODA NORTH
ZAHARADEEN M. SADA
MALE
PDP
2
KAURA NAMODA SOUTH
ANAS SARKIN FADA
MALE
PDP
3
BIRNIN MAGAJI
NURA DAHIRU
MALE
PDP
4
ZURMI EAST
SALIHU USMAN ZURMI
MALE
PDP
5
ZURMI WEST
NASIRU MU’AZU
MALE
PDP
6
SHINKAFI
MUHAMMAD G. AHMAD
MALE
PDP
7
TSAFE EAST
MUSA BAWA MUSA
MALE
PDP
8
TSAFE WEST
ALIYU NA-MAIGORA
MALE
PDP
9
GUSAU EAST
IBRAHIM NAIDA
MALE
PDP
10
GUSAU WEST
SHAFI’U DAMA
MALE
PDP
11
BUNGUDU EAST
KABIRU MAGAJI
MALE
PDP
12
BUNGUDU WEST
NASIRU BELLO LAWAL
MALE
PDP
13
MARU NORTH
YUSUF ALHASSAN MUHAMMAD
MALE
PDP
14
MARU SOUTH
KABIRU HASHIMU
MALE
NRM
15
ANKA
YUSUF MUHAMMAD
MALE
PDP
16
TALATA MAFARA NORTH
SHAMSUDEEN HASSAN
MALE
PDP
17
TALATA MAFARA SOUTH
AMINU YUSUF JANGEBE
MALE
PDP
18
BAKURA
TUKUR JEKADA BIRNIN TUDU
MALE
PDP
19
MARADUN I
FARUK MUSA DOSARA
MALE
PDP
20
MARADUN II
NASIRU ATIKU
MALE
PDP
21
GUMMI I
ABDULNASIR IBRAHIM
MALE
PDP
22
GUMMI II
MANSUR MOHAMMED
MALE
PDP
23
BUKKUYUM NORTH
IBRAHIM MOHAMMED NA’IDDA
MALE
PDP
24
BUKKUYUM SOUTH
SANI DAHIRU
MALE
PDP

6.​The Commission will issue Certificates of Return to the new winners as follows:

i. Governor and Deputy Governor-elect, Senators-elect and Members of the House of Representatives-elect will receive their certificates on Monday 27th May 2019 at the Commission’s Electoral Institute at 2.00pm.

ii. Members of the State House of Assembly-elect will receive their certificates from the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Zamfara State at the INEC State Office in Gusau on Friday 31st May 2019 at 10.00am.

7.​I wish to seize this opportunity to draw the attention of all stakeholders, but particularly the political parties, to the implications of the Supreme Court judgment on the Zamfara matter. It is clear that properly conducted party primaries are cardinal to the proper internal functioning of political parties, the electoral process and our democratic system at large. Therefore, political parties must take very seriously the conduct of primaries according to all extant rules, including the monitoring of the processes by INEC to avoid a repeat of the Zamfara experience. I want therefore to remind us that the Commission has since 9th April 2019 issued the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2019 Bayelsa and Kogi Governorship elections by which party primaries are scheduled to hold between the 2nd and 29th August 2019. I appeal to political parties intending to field candidates in the elections to adhere strictly to this and other timelines in the Timetable and Schedule of activities.

8.​ I thank you very much and I will now take some questions.