Kano is also the commercial nerve centre of Northern Nigeria.
The incumbent governor, Abdullahi Ganduje, clawed back from the jaw of death to win re-election in Kano State, overcoming the main challenger, Abba Kabir-Yusuf of the Peoples Democratic Party by 8982 votes, after the supplementary elections held on Saturday.
According to the result announced by the returning officer, Ganduje of the APC polled 1,033,695 votes while Kabir-Yusuf of the PDP got 1,024,713 votes.
The PDP agent reportedly walked out of the collation centre before the announcement of the result.
Before the supplementary election, the PDP candidate had 1,014,474 votes, while Ganduje got 987,819 votes.
In the supplementary elections held in polling units in 28 LGAs, Ganduje got an upper-hand, winning 45,876 votes while the PDP candidate got 10,239 votes.
The Collation Officer in Kano, Prof. Bello Shehu, declared Ganduje the winner, having satisfied requirements of the law by scoring the highest number of votes.
According to Shehu, the winner was declared after the collation of the results from all the affected 28 local government areas where the supplementary elections were conducted on Saturday March 23.
The governorship election was earlier declared inconclusive, following the high number of cancelled votes as a result of violence and over-voting.
According to the collation officer, the total number of votes cancelled during the earlier election which led to the declaration of the poll as inconclusive was more than the margin between the PDP candidate, who was leading with 26,000 votes and that of the APC candidate.
The votes cancelled during the March 9 governorship election was 128,572 votes.
Meanwhile, the PDP Chairman in Kano, Alhaji Suleiman Rabiu–Bichi has rejected the entire re-run election, especially that of Gama in Nassarawa Local Government Area.
The PDP Chairman further described the election processes as shameful and called for the immediate cancellation of the exercise.
According to him, the party will not accept the result. It therefore refused to sign the result.