CANDIDATE of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) in the Bauchi State gubernatorial election, Bala Mohammed, has been declared the winner of the election.

He defeated the incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar of the All Progressives Congress (APC) after a protracted electoral process that was eventually concluded after a court judgement.

Mohammed Kyari, the Bauchi State returning officer, announced the results of elections on Monday night, saying that out of the 1,111,406 valid votes cast during the election, Mohammed polled 515,113 votes while his rival Abubakar scored 500,625 votes.

Collation of results resumed on Monday evening after Justice Inyang Ekwo of the Federal High Court dismissed a suit filed by the APC and Governor Abubakar challenging the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to resume collation.

The Bauchi election was initially declared inconclusive because the number of cancelled votes in some of the polling units was higher than the margin of lead between the candidates of the two major political parties.

However, following further scrutiny, INEC established that the number of cancelled votes in Tafawa Balewa local government was altered from 2,533 to 25,330. The commission then decided that the collation of result for the affected LGA would be revisited.

But the APC and its candidate went to court seeking to stop INEC from resuming collation. They argued that since the returning officer had declared the election inconclusive, INEC cannot overrule him.

On Monday, Justice Inyang dismissed the case, saying that the court lacked jurisdiction to entertain an election matter. Following the judgement, INEC concluded the collation of results in Tafawa Balewa LGA and eventually returned Bala Mohammed as the governor-elect.