Governor Nasir el-Rufai has lost Saturday’s chairmanship and councillorship elections in his polling unit, as the main opposition party, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) won both elections.
El-Rufai had earlier voted at his Polling Unit 01 Ungwar Sarki, Kaduna North local government area of the state, where he said his target was not to win all the polls but to improve the voting process and ensure that nobody can rig this and future polls using the Electronic Voting Machine (EVM).
The presiding officer of the polling unit, Mr Muhammad Sani, while announcing the result immediately after the election on Saturday evening, said el-Rufai’s All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 62 votes in the chairmanship election, while Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) scored 86 votes, ZLP scored five votes, PRP scored four votes, SDP scored one vote and APP scored one vote out of the 159 total votes cast.
In the Councillorship election, APC also polled 53 votes, while PDP polled 100 votes, ZLP won two votes, PRP scored two votes and NNPP scored one vote out of the 162 total votes cast.
Speaking after casting his vote, el-Rufai said, “We are not going to behave like other parties or other state government of the ruling party. We will allow the people of Kaduna state to elect who they want. We do not have to win everywhere, though we have worked for the people of Kaduna state, they have seen our footprint and we are confident that all reasonable minded people will vote for our party, our candidate because they know we are committed to the welfare of the people.
“We don’t believe in cheating, we don’t believe in rigging election, but also we don’t believe that other people should cheat us. And that is why we encouraged SIECOM to come up with a very improved system and i’m impressed with the whole thing.
“Technology is key to minimising cheating in election, unless we have credible election we can never have good leaders, accountable leaders and that is why we are committed, even if it means we are going to lose in some areas, this is democracy, it is a gradual process,” the governor said.