By Ayo Jones
(with Agency reports)
The governorship election held in Adamawa State last Saturday has been declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).
The decision was made due to the margin of votes recorded in the election by the contestants. Senator Aishatu Dahiru, popularly known as Binani, who is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, scored 390,275 while the incumbent governor of the state and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Ahmadu Fintiri, polled 421,524.
According to the State Collation Officer, Prof. Mohammed Mele, there were 69 polling units where elections were cancelled, which affected no fewer than 37,016 potential voters with Permanent Voter Cards (PVCs) in those units.
The APC agent at the collation centre, Usman Maulud, rejected the outcome of the polls. The PDP agent, Dr. Aliyu Idi-Hong, who kicked against the declaration of the election as inconclusive, claimed that the grounds relied on by the returning officer in declaring the results as inconclusive were not tenable.
Dr. Idi-Hong said that those affected were not more than 7,000 registered voters in the areas where elections were cancelled and the cancellations were purely based on over-voting.
He lamented that there had been deliberate collusion by the APC and INEC officials to steal the elections in Adamawa at all costs.
The declaration of the election as inconclusive means that a supplementary election will be conducted in the affected polling units to determine the winner of the governorship race.