This was announced by the state's resident electoral commissioner (REC), Ibrahim Abdullahi, on Tuesday, March 18, 2019, only moments after the Federal High Court sitting in Abuja ordered the commission to halt the collation.
The order was as a result of an ex-parte application filed by the All Progressives Congress (APC) and its governorship candidate, Governor Mohammed Abubakar, who have expressed displeasure with the electoral commission for cancelling an initially-scheduled supplementary election.
After the collation of results for the March 9 election, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Bala Mohammed, polled 469,512 votes while second-placed Governor Abubakar polled 465,453 votes, leaving the margin of victory at 4,059 votes and number of cancelled votes at 45,312 .
According to the "Margin of Lead Principle" contained in Sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act and paragraph 41(e) and 43(b) of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines, the commission cannot declare a winner if the number of cancelled votes can mathematically affect the outcome of the election.
On Tuesday, March 12, INEC announced that the supplementary election would take place in Bauchi on March 23, along with five other states (Adamawa, Benue, Kano, Plateau and Sokoto) where governorship elections were similarly inconclusive.
However, the Bauchi supplementary election was cancelled three days later after INEC decided to approve the resumption, conclusion and announcement of result for the Tafawa Balewa local government area of the state which was initially cancelled due to the improper collation of results.
Abubakar said the commission's decision was "extra illegal" because only a court could take the decision that it did by cancelling the supplementary election after the initial inconclusive verdict.
While ruling on the application filed by Abubakar and APC on Tuesday, March 19, Justice Inyang Ekwo ordered INEC to stop the collation and announcement of the results of Tafawa Balewa LGA as requested by Governor Abubakar and the APC.
He ordered the electoral umpire to halt the exercise until the determination of the suit.
While addressing the media later on Tuesday, Abdullahi said the collation, which was set to happen on Tuesday, has now been halted in recognition of the order.
"The Independent National Electoral Commission is in receipt of a court order restraining it from proceeding with the collation and announcement of results in respect of Tafawa Balewa only," he said.
However, since the order does not affect the collation for the State House of Assembly election that also took place on March 9, INEC will go ahead and conclude collation for that.
"I'm also to add that the order which was sought and granted does not include the Tafawa Balewa constituency, hence we will make arrangements to continue with the state constituency collation and subsequently announce the results," he said.
Definite hearing of the suit filed by Abubakar and the APC has been fixed for Wednesday, March 20, 2019.