The Governor of Kaduna State, Nasir El-Rufai, has reacted the loss of his party, the All Progressives Congress (APC), at his polling unit in the just concluded local government election in the state.

Exonerating himself from the loss, Governor El-Rufai said the vote of the people was not against him but the councillor and the performance of the chairman of the local council.

He noted that the loss was not a referendum on him, saying that the fact that his polling unit was won by the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) showed that democracy prevailed.

Governor El-Rufai reacted to the loss by the APC on Channels Television’s Sunrise Daily programme on Monday.

“The results of the election so far are a unifying moment for our state which is what we have been working on.

“We want to work against the narrative that the PDP is a party for a part of the state, while the APC is a party for another. Some people say PDP is a party of religious affiliation, while the APC is that of another.

“The results of the election clearly show that we are finally uniting Kaduna State and people are making choices based on the performance of elected officials.”

Governor El-Rufai also gave an update on what was going on in some of the local governments where elections took place.

He said, “There are issues that came up and the electoral commission is working on them. Two LGAs are still contentious, the results have not been communicated to me.

“I have been told that in Kachia, one of the LGAs, the election is inconclusive because the machines did not function in many polling units. Soba is awaited, but so far I will say that the exercise has gone reasonably well.

“There is little we can do to avoid thugs snatching electoral machines, but you should know that these machines are programmed to be disconnected remotely by the electoral commission. The machine also provides its GPS location so you can target and go and recover it”, Governor El-Rufai said.