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“391,741 illegal votes added to El-Rufai’s in guber election”

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7 years ago

August 18, 2019

Editor

The immediate past Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has reportedly withdrawn his interest in being part of President Bola Tinubu’s cabinet. According to report, presidency sources said Mr El-Rufai told President Tinubu at a meeting on Tuesday that he was no longer interested in becoming a minister but would continue to contribute his quota to the development of Nigeria as a private citizen. “He also told the president that he needed time to focus on his doctorate programme at a university in The Netherlands,” a source said. Another insider also said that the former governor suggested a new ministerial nominee — Jafaru Ibrahim Sani — for Kaduna State, saying the President would find him very useful and resourceful. Mr Sani served as commissioner in three ministries in Kaduna State (Local Government Education and Environment) while Mr El-Rufai was governor.

Isa Ashiru, PDP’s candidate in the last guber election in Kaduna, has revealed how 391,741 unlawful votes were added to Governor Nasir el-Rufai’s votes during the election.

Ashiru also admitted the election management body added 124, 210 to his own vote too.

So in his final written address to the governorship election tribunal through his 19 counsels, Ashiru said a deduction of 391,741 votes from 1,045,427 El-Rufai scored, and a deduction of 124,210 from his original 814, 168 votes will place him ahead of other governorship candidates.

The deduction of the unlawful votes, he will be left with 689,958 lawful votes, while Nasir El-Rufai left with 653,686 lawful votes.

The INEC had declared El-Rufai winner of the election after he polled 1,045,427 votes. While Ashiru scored 814,168 votes.

According to him, his witnesses—135 of them— have testified there were improper entries in the polling unit results, wrongful collation of entries in the ward collation results including unstamped and un-authenticated votes as void or invalid votes were credited to the parties.

He further argued that a total of 4, 235 votes were wrongfully credited to El-Rufai on form EC8A while 256 votes were also wrongfully entered for him, another 45,478 votes arising from unstamped result sheets that were unlawfully credited to El-Rufai, while 9,655 votes were equally credited to him, 6,840 unlawful votes arising from improper collation figures were also entered for el-Rufai while 1,098 vote were credited for him, 391,188 voids and unlawful votes were also credited to El-Rufai while 113,001 votes were equally credited to him.

Ashiru opined that he has given enough material evidence of substantial irregularities to enable the tribunal declare him winner of the March 9thGovernorship election in Kaduna State.

He insisted that INEC, Nasir El-Rufai and the APC in Kaduna State did not present the required evidence to counter balance the evidence by his witnesses.

The Petitioners and the Respondents are expected to appear at the tribunal on Monday 19th August for adoption of the final written addresses.