BY SULE TAHIR.
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has removed the name of the embattled majority leader of the House of Representatives, Alhassan Ado Doguwa, from the list of election winners.
The electoral body had declared him as the winner of the February 25 election in the Doguwa/Tudunwada constituency.
The returning officer, Professor Ibrahim Adamu Yakasai had earlier announced that Doguwa of the All Progressives Congress (APC) polled 39,732 votes to defeat his closest rival, Yushau Salisu Abdullahi of the New Nigeria People’s Party (NNPP) who polled 34,798 votes.
But in the newly released list of members-elect, Doguwa’s name was conspicuously absent.
In the remark session, INEC stated that the declaration was made under duress.
In a viral video of the returning officer declaring the results, the don from Bayero University, Kano could be seen reading out the results with a shaky voice.
Recalls that following election violence recorded in the constituency after the election, AIT reported that Doguwa was arrested by the Police for his alleged role in the killings of several persons and burning of the secretariat of the NNPP, an allegation the lawmaker has denied vehemently.
The police had confirmed that at least three persons were killed while the campaign secretariat of the NNPP in Tudunwada was set ablaze with two persons burnt to death.
Doguwa was thereafter taken before a magistrate’s court on the charges of murder, arson and unlawful possession of firearms, and was subsequently remanded in prison.
But a Federal High Court in Kano on Monday admitted the embattled lawmaker to N500million bail but barred him from his constituency during the forthcoming gubernatorial and state assembly elections.
