Reasons why there may he a Rerun of Governorship election in Zamfara state
By: Ngene Ukwenu
That APC has been disqualified by the Supreme court, and subsequently voided their votes, is no longer a news.
However, the Supreme court in passing their Judgement was being careful and vigilant not to create another constitutional crisis, hence the caveat ” the second highest scoring party which met the Constitutional requirements should be sworn in as elected.
Now, which party came second?- PDP
Did the PDP meet the constructional requirements, for instance in the Governorship election?
Then, let’s see the scores of PDP and APC as regards the Zamfara Governorship Election:
The apex court ordered that runner-up candidate be sworn in if he fulfils the constitutional requirement of getting one quarter of the total votes cast in at least 2/3 of LGs of d state.
Here is the analysis:
Total votes cast: 810,782
APC: 534,541 votes
PDP: 189,452 votes
Now if you remove the Voided Votes which now include that of the APC…You are now left with 189,452 votes of the PDP and about 10,000 combined votes of the “also ran” parties which will total about 200,000 votes.
From the above analysis, it is very clear that void votes are way higher than valid votes, which a winner CANNOT be Validly Returned.
Only Option before the INEC: order a rerun of the entire election, which must exclude APC ( Since the window for primaries had since closed).
Option before APC: Adopt one of the “also ran parties” put the picture of Buhari on the banners, and let their candidates be the candidates of the APC.”
