The stage is set for the announcement of Senator Bala Mohammed as the winner of the Bauchi State gubernatorial election with the ruling of a Federal High Court, sitting in Abuja on Monday.

The gubernatorial candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) garnered 6,376 votes in last Saturday’s re-run election, as against 5,117 votes scored by incumbent governor Mohammed Abdullahi of the All Progressives Congress (APC) according to result of the re-run was announced in Bauchi on Sunday by the governorship election Returning Officer, Prof. Mohammed Kyari, Vice Chancellor of Modibbo Adama University of Technology, Yola.

Kyari however said he was not in a position to make any pronouncement regarding the overall winner of the governorship election in the state due to the suit before a Federal High Court, Abuja over the collation of results in Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area.

The results of election in 19 out of the 20 Local Government Areas in the state, earlier conducted on March 9, indicated that Mohammed polled 469,512 votes while Abubakar scored 465, 453 votes.

With the release of the re-run election result, conducted in 36 polling units across 15 Local Government Areas, the total votes scored by Mohammed increased to 475,888 votes, while that of Abubakar rose to 470, 570 votes, a difference of 5,318 votes.

But the Returning Officer said he cannot declare Mohammed the winner of the election because of the ruling of the court barring Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from the collation of results of Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area.

Incumbent governor, Mohammed Abubakar, had dragged INEC to court to challenge the decision of the electoral body directing the continuation of collation of results of the area, having earlier declared same as inconclusive.

But on Monday, the Federal High Court, Abuja on Monday made an order allowing INEC to  proceed with the collation and announcement of  the results of Tafawa Belewa Local Goverment of Bauchi State.

Justice Inyang Ekwo who gave the order while delivering judgment in a suit filed by the APC said that the court lacked the jurisdiction to entertain the matter.

According to the judge, having declined jurisdiction, the order of status quo made on March 19 is hereby vacated.

“There is no legal impediment preventing INEC from going ahead with the decision contained in its press release of March 15.

“Accordingly, I make an order dismissing this suit.”

The PDP candidate recorded massive win in the Tafawa Balewa local government and the collation of result will further increase his lead over the incumbent governor, thus setting him up as the next chief executive of Bauchi State.   deused0 \