The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa State, Senator Aisha Dahiru Ahmed (Binani), has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to review the March 18, governorship election results in the state.
But Governor Umaru Fintiri said the review was uncalled for, insisting the election was free and fair.
Fintiri had been on the lead with 421,524 votes against Binani who polled 390,275 when the election was declared inconclusive with the collation officer, Professor Muhammad Lamin Mele saying the decision was taken in accordance with the Electoral Law as the number of cancelled votes exceeded the gap between the two leading candidates.
In a letter to the INEC Chairman, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, Binani solicited the review of the election in “a number of local government areas in Adamawa State.”
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In the letter titled: “A Plea for Equity, Fairness and Justice”, Binani noted that INEC ordered reviews for Abia and Enugu governorship results, as well as a similar review in Doguwa Constituency in Kano State, in line with Section 65 of the Electoral Act 2022, stressing the case of Adamawa should not be different.
She said, “My lawyer has similarly applied to the commission for a Certified True Copy of the Bimodal Verification Authentication System (BVAS) used for the March 18, 2023, Adamawa State elections.
“This is as a result of series of actions of the PDP, the governor of Adamawa and other persons in disrupting the elections, causing violence, tearing of result sheets, intimidation and harassment of both voters and INEC officials, non-accreditation of thousands of voters by non-use of BVAS, fraudulent upload of state assembly constituency results on governorship IREV, beating of some APC returning officers which caused the hospitalisation in Yola of Mallam Ahmadu J. Hausa, Ward Chairman of Song Gari for four days.
“The case for Adamawa State is not in any way different from places where reviews were undertaken. It is for this reason that I am asking for equity, fairness and justice as guaranteed by the 2022 Electoral Act and the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria,” she said.
Fintiri kicks
Responding to the call for review of more results, Fintiri who spoke on a television program said the review was uncalled for, saying the election was free and fair.
“Why should it be reviewed? The results of the presidential election were not reviewed. Why should the Adamawa governorship election be reviewed? Why does she (Aisha Binani) want the results to be reviewed?“, Fintiri queried.
“The INEC did not depend on the summary of the collation sheet but downloaded the results of Fufore on IReV; what kind of review do they want again? They went to the IReV and downloaded the results; I also went to the portal and downloaded the results through my agents and it was the same”, he added.
INEC has fixed the 15th of April for re-run in respect of the 69 polling units with 41,796 voters and 37,016 PVCs collected but a source told our correspondent that Binani might not participate because it would be an exercise in futility.
From Kabiru R. Anwar (Yola) & John Chuks Azu (Abuja)
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