INEC Declares Winner of Nasarawa/Toto Federal Constituency By-election

INEC on Thursday declared Ja’afaru Mohammed-Ibrahim of All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the Nasarawa/Toto Federal Constituency by-election.

Dr. Wilfred Uji of the Federal University, Lafia, who is the Constituency Returning Officer for the election, made the declaration in Nasarawa, Nasarawa Local Government Area of the state.

The News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) reports that Mohammed-Ibrahim won with a total of 55,981 votes to beat his closest rival from the PDP, Hon. Musa Ahmed-Mohammed, who had 17,475 votes.

Uji, who commended the roles played by political stakeholders and security agencies in ensuring a peaceful conduct of the election, called for the sustenance of this culture.

“If we will recall the May 28th by-election, the election result was put on hold and the winner was not declared due to cancellation of votes in some polling units as a result of over voting.

Four political parties participated during the by- election. And today, the election has been concluded peacefully.

For Nasarawa/Toto Federal Constituency, we have a total number of 202,338 registered voters for the election out of which 87,602 were accredited. The total vote cast was 86,805 and we have 85,728 valid votes while rejected votes stand at 1,077.

The four political parties that participated in the bye-election scored the following votes:

APC scored 55,981 votes, PDP scored 17,475 votes, APGA 12,227 votes and Labour party (LP) got 45 votes.

By the power conferred on me by INEC, Arch. Ja’afaru Mohammed-Ibrahim of the All Progressives Congress (APC) having satisfied the requirements of the law and who scored the highest total votes of 55,981 is hereby declared the winner,” he said.

NAN reports that agents of APGA and LP for the election signed the election result.

The PDP, however, had boycotted the re-run with the party hinging its decision on non-use of card readers by INEC.

INEC had on May 29th declared the bye-election inconclusive due to cancellation of votes as a result of over voting in 41 polling units.

The commission had organised the election following the death of Musa Baba Onwana who was representing the constituency in the lower chamber.