A woman votes at Tukpeki Primary school, Kuje Area Council in Abuja

The decision by the Returning Officer of the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare as inconclusive, the chairmanship election in Gwagwalada area council  in Nigeria’s Federal capital of Abuja  has spurred violence.

The returning officer Adamu Tanimu said the election became inconclusive following cancellation of two polling units under Ibwa ward, which have a cumulative registered voters of 1881.

He had earlier given the scores of all the four participating parties, where APGA’s candidate, Mustapha Adamu (Obama) recorded the highest number of 15, 272 votes.

The closest rival and incumbent chairman, Abubakar Jibrin of APC recorded 14, 546, with PDP having 6,082 votes.

The difference between APGA and APC, according to the collation officer stood at 726 votes.

However, he said, since the total number of cancelled votes  exceeded the difference between the duo, a run-off election has to be conducted by the electoral umpire.

This prompted the APGA agent, Ibrahim Danbare to challenge the declaration, and immediately ordered for the hundreds of supporters, who spent  the night singing and dancing outside the INEC office to enter into the building.

The army of thugs reportedly overwhelmed  a combined military, police, Civil defence and other security outfits at the gate and  them and made their way into the building. They smashed  cars and glasses, and  chased everybody within the office with machetes, sticks and other weapons.

APGA later accused the electoral officer of  succumbing  to the pressure mounted by the FCT minister, to declare the election inconclusive.

“As a party, we have always played by the rules and won’t allow  collude with the ruling APC to cancel our victory in Gwagwalada,” APGA said in a post on its Twitter handle.