Expectations that history would be made at this year’s general election with the emergence of Nigeria’s democratically elected first female governor has ultimately been dashed, with the defeat of the symbol of that hope, Aisha Al-Hassan, of the All Progressives Congress, APC.
Aisha Al-Hassan, popularly called ‘Mama Taraba’ put up a strong showing in the well-fought race, but was defeated at the end of Saturday’s supplementary election in the state, polling 360,318 votes to trail the Peoples Democratic Party’s Darius Ishiaku, who garnered 53,120 votes.
The INEC returning officer for the state, Muhammad Kyari, declared Darius governor-elect, having scored the highest number of votes and winning a quarter of the votes in almost all the local government areas in the state.
The 2015 governorship in Taraba state enjoyed huge following across the country with several activists and young people backing the APC candidate to make history as the first female governor in the country’s history.
In fact, as results of the election from local government areas trickled into INEC office in Jalingo, the Taraba State capital, on April 11, Ms. Al-Hasan, at some point overtook her main challenger, Ishiaku and thus triggered nationwide celebration by people who thought Al-hasan was on her way to dislodging the PDP from the state in a historic win.
But as more votes arrived from remote local governments, it emerged that Ms. Al-Hasan was actually trailing her challenger.
At the end of INEC’s final collation that day, the election was declared inconclusive because the margin of Ishiaku’s victory was lower than the number of registered voters in areas where elections either did not hold or were cancelled due to irregularities.
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