The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared the Kogi State governorship election inconclusive.
Declaring the results of the election, the electoral body said its decision was reached after collation of results that showed a number of cancelled votes that was higher than the margin between the leading candidate and the runner-up.
After the 21 local councils’ election results were collated from this morning, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Prince Abubakar Audu, was leading while the incumbent Governor, Captain Idris Wada (rtd.) of the Peoples Democratic (PDP) trailed by a margin less than the number of cancelled votes.
The candidate of the APC had 240,867 votes while that of the PDP got 199,514 votes.
The commission said 49,953 votes were canceled, which was higher than the margin between the leading candidate and the runner-up.
No date has been fixed by INEC for a supplementary election.
The Kogi governorship election is the first election that the new leadership of the INEC is conducting.
It is also the first election under the administration of President Muhammadu Buhari of APC, after the ruling party won the March 28 Presidential election, taking power from PDP that had ruled the nation for 16 years.
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