By Yusuf Danjuma Yunusa
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) has also emerged victorious in Kwali Area Council, where its candidate, Daniel Nuhu, secured the chairmanship seat. Mr. Nuhu polled 17,032 votes to defeat his closest challenger, Haruna Pai of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who garnered 8,575 votes.
Several other political parties participated in the Kwali election but received relatively low support from voters. The Social Democratic Party (SDP) polled 432 votes, the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA) recorded 1,687 votes, and the African Democratic Congress (ADC) got 1,366 votes. Smaller parties, including the Action Alliance (AA) with 116 votes, the Action Democratic Party (ADP) with 128 votes, and the Young Progressives Party (YPP) with 158 votes, trailed behind.
INEC is expected to announce results for the remaining two Area Councils as collation processes are concluded.
The elections, held across the six Area Councils of the FCT, were closely watched amid heightened political competition between the APC and PDP. Smaller parties have struggled to make significant inroads in most of the councils declared so far.
However, the collation process was marred by tension on Saturday evening at a ward collation centre in the Garki area of Abuja. Party agents openly confronted officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) over the handling of councillorship election results, triggering confusion and heated exchanges.
According to a video of the scene posted by News Central TV, the situation became rowdy after party representatives alleged that electoral officials denied them the opportunity to verify figures announced for the councillorship contest. This was despite the commission allowing a similar verification process for the chairmanship results earlier in the day.
It was gathered that party agents had peacefully cross-checked figures relating to the chairmanship race before the official announcement was made. However, tensions escalated when the same level of transparency was allegedly not extended to the councillorship results. Officials reportedly declared the results without permitting agents to compare the figures with their own records, leading to the heated confrontation.
