Solomon Kumangar, Director General, Media and Communication to Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) governor, Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State says he sees no reason his principal was not declared winner in the just concluded March 18 governorship election.
Recall before the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) moved to declare the State’s election as inconclusive on Monday owing to margin of votes, there was heightened tension that the Commission was trying to manipulate the results to favour the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the State, Aishatu Dahiru (Binani).
The PDP’s governorship campaign council also called for the removal of the State’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Yunusa Hudu Arri following a leaked audio clip where he was heard instructing a returning officer in one of the local governments to manipulate the results.
In another development, as pointed by Felix Tangwami, the deputy director, Southern Adamawa Campaign Council, for the gubernatorial rerun, as against the official total number of Polling Units given as 69 at the collation centre, there’s an alleged inflation attempt to 77.
This, according to him, is a connivance of the APC and INEC to disrepute and make mockery of Nigeria’s electoral process.
However, Kumangar in a telephone interview with INFORMATION NIGERIA on Saturday maintained there was no crisis recorded in the State during the electioneering process until the time of collation.
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He said: “Everything was going very fine. The voting processes all over the State went fine. There were few or no crisis at all until the time of collation. INEC through the resident electoral commissioner started misbehaving. First of all, he was caught in tape instructing the returning officer in one of the local governments to help that woman (Binani). That was exactly what he said. He has admitted it and nothing was done about it.
“When we finally agreed to do the collation, he collated and blatantly decided to declare the excercise as inconclusive. Inconclusive how?” he queried.
The spokesman gave an instance of how the Commission declared governorship winner in States that had little margin of votes without resolving to inconclusivity.
“In Kaduna State, the margin of vote, the rejected and canceled one, was far higher than the votes the winner had, then they declared.
“Same (inconclusive) in Enugu, Abia or so. You can see the umpire itself is siding with the All Progressives Congress candidate to scuttle the people’s democracy. Even as it is now, initially it was 69 pollling units where they’re supposed to conduct supplementary election, now INEC through the back door added another more units making 77 Polling Units.
“But all the same, the candidate of the PDP who is the incumbent governor is in the lead with about 31,000 votes. If people can be declared with 11,000, 3,000, with 6,000; what is wrong with declaring the person that is clearly the winner in this contest?” Kumangar decried.
