Agency Report/
The Independent National Electoral Commission is set to declare Lawal Yahaya Gumau, candidate of the All Progressives Congress winner of the Bauchi South Senatorial election.
This is based on the official results declared and collated today in Bauchi.
Gumau, a member of the House of Representatives, polled 119, 489 votes to beat Ladan Salihu of the Peoples Democratic Party, who got 50,256 votes.
The result is set to be announced by Professor Ahmed Fadam of the Department of Agriculture, Abubakar Tafawa-Balewa University, Bauchi, the chief returning officer for the election held Saturday.
Former governor Isa Yuguda who contested on the platform of the Green Party of Nigeria came third with 33,079 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, who is yet to make an official switch from the APC to the PDP.
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 began today, slowed down by the heavy rain that fell Saturday evening. 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.
Apart from the winner, Gumau, Salihu and Isa Yuguda, there were six other candidates.
They were Haruna Ayuba (African Democratic Congress ), Aminu Tukur (Action Peoples party), Usman Hassan (Kowa Party), the only woman in the race Maryam Bargel (Social Democratic Party), Husseini Umar (New Nigeria Peoples Party) and Usman Chaledi (People for Democratic Change).
The bye-election arose following the death of Senator Ali Wakili in March.
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