National Telescope national telescope newspaper
Mild drama in Adamawa State at the early hours of Sunday when the State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Yunusa Hudu Ari, announced the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed known as Binani, winner of the governorship election.
It was learnt that the REC Chairman sneaked into the state governorship collation centre and made the declaration without the prior knowledge of the INEC Returning Officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, whom is empowered by law to make the declaration.
In the official results released by INEC, prior to declaration, Binani was trailing Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, who had established a margin of lead of 31,249 votes. But Fintiri despite polling 421, 524 votes to defeat Binani who polled 390, 275 votes could not be returned by the state returning officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, a Professor of English and Linguistics from the University of Maiduguri, because the margin of lead did not exceed the number of cancelled votes in 69 polling units with total number Permanent Voter Cards collected of 37,016.
However, at the resumption of the collation of results from the supplementary polls, which was held across the state on Saturday, to conclude the Adamawa governorship election exercise, a mild drama ensued as the Adamawa REC, who had abruptly suspended the collation exercise until 11 am on Sunday, sneaked into the collation centre at 9:00 am to declare Binani the winner.
(The Punch)
