Nigeria’s hope of producing her first ever elected female governor was dashed as the incumbent, Gov. Ahmadu Fintiri, was proclaimed the victor of the state governorship race on Tuesday by the returning officer for the Adamawa State election, Prof. Mohammed Mele.
With 430,861 votes, Fintiri won a second term in office, defeating Aisha Dahiru, also known as Binani, of the All Progressives Congress, who received 398,788 votes.
Also on Tuesday, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared that it had asked Boss Mustapha, Secretary to the Government of the Federation, to alert “the appointing authority” to Hudu Yunusa-Ari’s conduct as the state’s resident electoral commissioner.
48 hours after Binani’s contentious election as governor-elect by Yunusa-Ari, Fintiri won.
In the first round of the election held on March 18, Binani was behind Fintiri by more than 31, 000 votes.
The margin of lead in 69 polling units with 37, 016 voters did not exceed the number of votes that were invalidated, hence the electoral agency judged the election to be inconclusive.
The worried citizens of the state celebrated wildly when Mele announced Fintiri as the election winner at the resumed results collation on Tuesday.
Festus Okoye, National Commissioner for INEC and Chairman of the Information and Voter Education Committee, was present when the event took place.
The returning officer declared Ahmadu Fintiri the winner by saying, “Ahmadu Fintiri, having satisfied the requirement of the law, is hereby returned duly re-elected.”
2,196,566 people were registered to vote in total, while 876,387 people were accredited to vote.
The returning officer reported that 869,106 votes were cast in total, of which 853,819 were valid and 15,287 were rejected.
