The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) presidential candidate, Atiku Abubakar, has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare incumbent governor Ahmadu Fintiri winner of last weekend’s gubernatorial contest in the State.
The former vice president disclosed this in an, address to journalists on Monday in his Yola residence, warning the electoral umpire against causing chaos in the State.
Atiku was reacting to INEC’s decision to declared the Adamawa State governorship election conducted March 18 inconclusive due to the margin of votes.
The candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the State, Aishatu Dahiru popularly known as Binani scored 390, 275 while the incumbent, governor Ahmadu Fintiri, the PDP’s candidate, polled 421,524.
Recall that the Returning Officer, Muhammed Mele of the University of Maiduguri, Borno State, had earlier rejected the manual result sheet from the Fufore Local Government Area (LGA) of the state.
While the All Progressives Congress (APC) scored 26,329 and the PDP polled 21,721 in the result sheet, the INEC’s Result Viewing Portal (IReV) showed that the APC got 24,777 votes, and the PDP 20,777.
But the collation officials rejected the results as declared by the local government returning officer and accepted that of the IReV as authentic one.
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They say the results as declared by the Fufore LGA returning officer did not tally with that on the IREV portal, hence, now collating the final results for the announcement of the winner. With this result, the APC candidate Aisha Binani has eight LGAs while Gov Umaru Fintiri has won 13 LGAs from the 21 in the State.
The APC agents complained about the results and were advised to follow the appropriate channel for their grievances.
However, Atiku expressing his dissatisfaction said, “The action of INEC is capable of causing havoc. Adamawa is a very peaceful state. But the Commission is trying to do things unlawful, which are not in the interest of the state.”
Abubakar maintained that based on collated results from 20 of the 21 councils in the State, his party was in clear lead, and as such, Fintiri should be returned