22nd September, 2013
Nigeria’s Independent National Electoral Commission on Sunday announced Alhaji Abubakar Murtala of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) winner of the State House of Assembly by-election in Ringim Constituency of Jigawa state, northern Nigeria, held on Saturday.
The INEC Chief Returning Officer, Alhaji Umar Sani, said that the PDP candidate polled 22,431 to defeat his close rival of All Progressive Congress (APC) who scored 11,533 votes.
The re-run poll followed the death of the former Deputy Speaker of the state assembly, Alhaji Inuwa Udi in a road accident in August.
Sani said that a total of eight political parties participated in the bye-election.
Reacting, a chieftain of the APC, Alhaji Farouq Aliyu, alleged irregularities in the election, saying APC had been robbed of its electoral victory.
Aliyu said the party had written a petition to INEC challenging the results of the by-election.
He alleged that election in some polling units were inconclusive because of the violence that erupted in those areas.