‘How did Sule get his votes?’ — Nasarawa PDP demands probe of guber poll

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in Nasarawa has called for an investigation into the state’s gubernatorial election which held in March.

Last week, the Nasarawa governorship election petitions tribunal sacked Abdullahi Sule as governor and declared PDP’s David Ombugadu as winner of the poll.

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) had declared Sule, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as winner of the election with 347,209 votes.

Ombugadu had secured 283,016 votes to poll second.

The minority ruling by the tribunal said Sule got 295,402 votes, as opposed to the 347,209 announced by the electoral commission.

In a statement on Wednesday, Ibrahim Hamza, spokesperson of Nasarawa PDP, expressed dismay over the difference between the findings of the tribunal and what INEC announced, alleging that “fictitious” votes were given to Sule.

“The declaration of A.A Sule as the winner of the governorship election by the minority judgment with only 3,799 votes margin stands in stark contrast to his earlier assertion that he won the election with the margin of 51,807 votes as declared by INEC,” Hamza said.

“The minority judgment calls to question what AA Sule is actually appealing against when it’s glaring that fictitious votes were deliberately allocated to him by INEC to enable him to emerge as the ‘winner’.

“INEC, as the body responsible for overseeing our elections, holds a sacred duty to ensure that the will of the people is accurately represented.

“Any irregularities or discrepancies in the vote count must be thoroughly investigated to maintain the trust of the electorate and uphold the principles of democracy.

“In the instant case, neither INEC nor Sule is to be believed as shown by the majority judgment of the tribunal, which verified the total number of 293,287 votes cast in favour of Dr. Ombugadu of the PDP as against the 283,016 votes allocated to him by INEC.

“The tribunal also verified and affirmed that AA Sule actually scored only 292,446 votes and not the inflated votes of 347,209 allocated to him by INEC.”

The spokesperson said the tribunal’s disclosure is sufficient grounds for the governor not to appeal the verdict.