THE New Nigeria Peoples Party (NNPP) has won the local government election in all 44 council areas of Kano State.
Chairman of the Kano Independent Electoral Commission (KANSIEC), Sani Malunfashi, declared the results at the commission’s headquarters in Kano on Saturday, October 26 after the polls.
Malumfashi said the state has exercised its constitutional mandate of planning, organising, coordinating, observing, and conducting local elections.
“The exercise was largely peaceful and successful in all ramifications. The commission therefore deeply appreciates the roles played by the critical stakeholders, notably security agencies, media organisations, leaders of political parties, civil society organisations, religious leaders, community leaders, and women organisations, towards the actualization of grassroots democracy in the state.
“The peaceful conduct of the exercise is a doubtless manifestation of the public acceptability of the exercise in terms of credibility, fairness, and decency,” the KANSIEC chairman stated.
According to him, six political parties: the NNPP, Zenith Labour Party (ZLP), African Action Congress (AAC), National Rescue Movement (NRM), Accord, and Action Alliance—participated in the election, with the NNPP sweeping all the available positions.
The ICIR gathered that residents of Kano complied with the state government’s movement restriction order issued ahead of the local government election in the state.
The state government, which issued the “no movement” order through the commissioner for information and internal affairs, Baba Halilu Dantiyi, said it was to ensure the smooth conduct of the state’s local government election.
The local government election in Kano has been enmeshed in controversy in the week leading to the election.
The ICIR reported that KANSIEC on Friday, October 25, affirmed its readiness to conduct the election across all the local government areas.
This followed a Kano State High Court ruling affirming its power to conduct the polls.
The ICIR reported that a Federal High Court stopped the election from holding when it sacked the KANSIEC chairman and its members a few days before the poll.
The court, in its ruling, delivered by Simon Amobede, stated that the KANSIEC chairman and other members of the commission were card-carrying members of the ruling NNPP.
The court gave the ruling on Tuesday, October 22, while delivering judgment in a suit filed by Aminu Aliyu Tiga of the All Progressives Congress (APC) against KANSIEC, the state attorney general and commissioner for justice, Haruna Isa Dederi, and 14 others.
The judge added that KANSIEC could not validly and competently conduct local government elections in respect of 44 local governments in the state until and unless qualified persons are duly and legally appointed as chairman and members of the commission, in line with relevant extant law.
However, announcing its readiness for the election and also reacting to the state high court ruling on Friday, October 25, the commission’s chairman, Malunfashi, asserted that only the state high court held jurisdiction over state and local government affairs.
A reporter with the ICIR
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