The incumbent governor of Adamawa state, Ahmad Fintiri has won his re-election bid for a second term in Office.
According to the Independent National Electoral Commission returning officer, Professor Mele Lamido, after the collation of the supplementary elections on Tuesday, Fintiri of the People’s Democratic Party scored 430,861 votes to defeat his closest rival, Aishatu Binani Ahmed of the All Progressives Congress, who scored 398,788 votes.
According to Channels TV, the announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission at 5:49 pm on Tuesday was preceded by a series of political intrigues.
In last Saturday’s rerun, Fintiri, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party polled 9,337 votes besting Senator Aishatu ‘Binani’ Dahiru of the All Progressives Congress who scored 6,513 votes.
At the end of the entire exercise, Fintiri polled 430,861 votes, defeating Binani’s 398,788 votes.
With last month’s governorship election declared inconclusive by INEC, a supplementary election was scheduled for last Saturday.
However, on Sunday, as collation was underway, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner , Hudu Yunusa Ari, prematurely declared Binani as the winner, contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act.
Section 25 of the Electoral Act, 2022 empowers only the returning officer to announce the result and declare the winner of an election at the state collation centre in the case of the election of a governor of a state.
Incidentally, results had been declared for only 10 of the 20 local government areas in the supplementary poll, which indicated Fintiri was leading, having won in seven LGAs next to Binani’s three.
The declaration by Ari was quickly followed by an acceptance speech by the APC candidate.
