Mr Shekarau decamped from the NNPP to the PDP in September 2022.
Former Kano State Governor, Ibrahim Shekarau, on Monday, was declared the winner of the Kano Central Senatorial District election under the New Nigeria People Party (NNPP) despite his resignation from the party before the election.
The returning officer for the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in the Kano central district, Tijjani Darma, said Mr Shekarau polled 456,787 votes.
The official said the candidate of the All Progressive Congress (APC) Abdulkarim Abdulsalam, came second in the election with 168, 677 votes.
Mr Darma, a professor, said the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) Laila Buhari, secured 55,237 votes
However, after the declaration of the result, NNPP agent, Shehu Usman, rejected Mr Shekarau as the rightful candidate for the election. He alleged that INEC refused to replace Mr Shekarau's name with the candidate the NNPP nominated for the election, Rufai Hanga.
Mr Usman claimed there was a court order directing the INEC to accept the name of Mr Hanga as the right candidate for the election.
On his part, the APC agent, Yusuf Atta, urged INEC to declare his candidate, who won the second-highest votes as the winner since the NNPP winner, Mr Shekarau, did not participate in the election.
In his response, the returning officer, Mr Darma, urged contending parties to channel their grievances to the election tribunal that would be set up.
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Background of the crisis
The supposed senatorial candidate NNPP, Mr Hanga, did not make the final list of senatorial candidates released by the INEC before the 25 February election.
Instead, the commission published the name of Mr Shekarau, who is a sitting senator for the Kano Central.
Mr Shekarau was elected on the platform of the APC but defected to the NNPP briefly before he defected to the PDP in August last year following irreconcilable differences with NNPP's presidential candidate, Rabiu Kwankwaso.
The NNPP initially submitted Mr Shekarau's name to the INEC as its senatorial candidate for Kano Central.
INEC had argued that Mr Shekarau had yet to inform it officially that he had left the NNPP and was no longer its candidate for the district as required by the Electoral Act, thus it cannot replace his name with another person.
Mr Kwankwaso said the party had sued the INEC for failure to substitute Mr Shekarau's name after leaving the NNPP for the PDP.
