By Emeka Okafor
Candidate of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Shehu Saleh has been declared winner of Saturday’s by-election for Magama/Rijau Federal Constituency of Niger State.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Saleh winner of the election with a total of 22,965 votes.
Returning Officer for the election, Prof. Tanko Baba of Usman Dan Fodio University, Sokoto, who made the declaration on Sunday, said the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) candidate for the election, Emmanuel Alamu came second with 22,507 votes.
Baba added that the ADC candidate, Yusuf Nasir got 336 votes.
He explained that the total number of registered voters was 159,347, while the number of accredited voters was 46,734 and that there were 691 rejected votes.
Saleh’s victory, it was learnt, was as a result of the conspiracy against the PDP candidate in the election, as the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC) had earlier be barred, by the court, from presenting any candidate for the contest.
It would be recalled that the issue of who was the APC candidate for the constituency between Saleh and Jafaru Iliyasu was a matter before the court ahead of the 2019 general election.
Though Iliyasu eventually became a member of the House of Representatives on the platform of APC, he died in his sleep on December 1, 2019.
A by-election was held on March 27, 2020 with Kasim Danjuma as the new APC candidate, and was subsequently declared winner by INEC.
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But candidate of the PDP, Emma Alamu approached the election petition tribunal, contending that Kasim was not qualified to stand for the by-election for allegedly submitting forged documents.
Alamu said Danjuma presented a fake primary school certificate and also forged his declaration of age certificate.
In it’s ruling, tge tribunal sacked Kasim, a decision that was later upheld by the Court of Appeal
The court further ordered INEC to fix fresh by-election, and also barred the APC from participating in the exercise.
It is believed that Saleh only used the APGA platform to return to the House of Representatives and may be defecting to the APC soon.
The ruling APC, APGA and the ADC apparently ensured a common front against the PDP.
APGA’s popularity is restricted to the South East, with only Anambra State in it’s kitty.
