Earlier on, in January 2015, in a pre-election poll for the Kaduna gubernatorial elections organised by the ANAP Foundation, the result showed el-Rufai leading Yero by a gap of 26% in-between them; the former having 46% of total votes, and the latter 20%. 23% of the voters, however, remained indecisive.[13]
The APC primary election began Thursday, December 4, 2014, ending early on Friday December 5, when results were announced at about 8:30 AM at the Kaduna International Trade Fair Complex where the event was held. Nasir el-Rufai overcame four other contenders, polling 1,965 votes to become the winner of the contest. There were a total of 3,557 accredited delegates, 3,546 total vote cast of which 3,518 were valid and 28 invalid, as reported the returning officer, Prince Ekenyem Orizu.[15]
The PDP primary election was held at Murtala Square Kaduna on December 7, 2014. After all but one of the other aspirants stepped down for him, Mukhtar Ramalan Yero, the incumbent governor emerged with the highest votes, polling 970, while his only contender, Senator Haruna Aziz Zego, got a lone vote, out of a total of 972 delegate votes.[16][17][18]
A total of 14 candidates registered with the Independent National Electoral Commission to contest in the election. The PDP candidate scored the highest, polling a total of 1,117,635 votes to oust the APC contestant and incumbent governor, who emerged second with 485,833 votes, while the APGA candidate came third, with 20,140 votes.[3][19][20] There were 3,357,469 registered voters across the state, out of which 1,710,935 were accredited, but just 1,660,109 voted, according to the INEC Returning Officer.[8]
The results of the election by local government area are here, representing the two major contenders. The total valid votes of 1,629,157 represents the 14 political parties that participated in the election. Green represents LGAs won by Yero. Blue represents LGAs won by el-Rufai.[23][4][8][24][25]
