The incumbent Governor of Adamawa State Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri had the last laugh today when he was declared winner of the most controversial guber polls in the 2023 election season, the Adamawa State gubernatorial election.
Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) and the incumbent governor of Adamawa State was declared winner after a thorough look into the elections that ended up in supplementary exercise.
The declaration followed a controversy earlier whereby the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed also known as Binani was declared winner by the suspended Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Barr. Hudu Yunusa-Ari.
Fintiri polled a total of 430,861 votes against Binani’s 398,788 votes making him the winner of the Adamawa State gubernatorial election.
He received the highest number of votes in the supplementary election, with 9,337 out of about 16,000 votes cast.
On the other hand, the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled a total of 398,788.
Binani however struggled to secure only 6,514 votes in the supplementary election.
INEC officials had collated Adamawa gubernatorial election results for the third consecutive time.
The electoral umpire had earlier declared the Adamawa State election inconclusive due to the margin of votes between the leading candidates on March 20.
Muhammad Mele, INEC’s returning officer in the state, had said, “Elections were not held in 47 wards, affecting 69 polling units. So, this gives us a margin of 31,249. The total number of PVCs collected in places where elections were not held amounted to 37,016.”
INEC rejected the declaration of Binani as the Adamawa State governor-elect in an inconclusive collation process on Sunday.
Fintiri will be receiving a certificate of return from INEC in the coming days.