BREAKING: INEC Redeems Adamawa Election, Declares Incumbent Governor-elect

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, on Tuesday redeemed the electoral process in Adamawa State after the conclusion of collation of results and declared incumbent Governor, Ahmadu Fintiri, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, winner.

In the exercise that was concluded on Tuesday evening and attended by Festus Okoye, National Commissioner for Voter Education of the Commission, INEC announced that Fintiri scored 430,869 votes to defeat the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC, Aishatu Dahiru Binani, who polled 398,788

This followed the conclusion of the election which was declared inconclusive on March 18.

INEC subsequently scheduled a supplementary election for April 15 for the conclusion of the exercise.

However, the process stalled when the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa, walked into the collation centre on Sunday morning to announce Binani as the winner of the election despite suspension of collation.

Collation of the supplementary polls had commenced on Saturday following the conclusion of voting but was suspended to resume the following day at 11am.

But confusion ensued when Yunusa, aided by the Commissioner of Police (CP) on election duty in the state, Mohammed Barde, announced that Binani “is the winner.”

The Commission quickly rejected the outcome and suspended collation.

At a press conference preceding the resumption of collation on Tuesday, the INEC called on the Inspector General of Police to arrest and prosecute Hudu.

The Police also suspended its commissioner on election duty in a show of denouncing his role in the act described by many as inglorious and illegitimate capable of stirring up violence.

To redeem the process however, INEC suspended Hudu and dispatched Okoye to monitor the process.

In the exercise monitored by THE WHISTLER, the collation officers announced the following scores for the top two candidates.

MAYO BELWA LGA.
APC. 478,
PDP. 672
Registered Voters (RV) 2,426
Accredited Voters (AV) 1,181.

TOUNGO LGA:
APC: 427
PDP: 360
Registered V2: 1684
Accredited Voters: 825

GUYUK LGA
APC. 228
PDP. 322

GOMBI LGA:
APC. 12
PDP. 53

MUBI NORTH LGA
APC. 168
PDP. 319

MICHIKA LGA
APC. 562
PDP 1,027

GIREI LGA
APC. 589
PDP. 444

NUMAN LGA
APC 621
PDP. 1,403

MADAGALI LGA
APC. 47
PDP. 147.

Total number of registered voters for the supplementary voters stood at 42,989 while the number of accredited voters was 16,423.

In declaring the result, the returning officer, Mohammed Mele announced that a total of 2,196,566 people registered for the election while 876,387 were accredited to vote in the entire election.

He declared that by the power conferred on him and having satisfied the provision of law, Fintiri has been declared the winner and returned elected.