The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has declared Adamawa State governorship election inconclusive, to announce a date for the supplementary election.
Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) was coasting home to victory when the process was halted by the controversy over voting in the Fufore Local Government Area of the state, which made INEC declare the election inconclusive.
Fintiri who is the incumbent Governor in the state was leading his main challenger and candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aishatu Binani Ahmed, in the keenly contested March 18 election.
Before the election was declared inconclusive, election results announced showed that Fintiri polled 421,522 while Binani polled 390,275.
The election collation officer Muhammad Laminu Mele, a professor and deputy vice chancellor of the University of Maiduguri announced the results.
Fintiri, 55, was first elected Governor in 2019 on the same PDP platform. He defeated an incumbent, Jibrilla Bindow, of the APC, in 2019 to become Governor. He has been a constant feature in Adamawa politics for years, serving first as a member of the Adamawa State House of Assembly.
In 2014, he served briefly as the acting Governor from July to October after a political crisis led to the impeachment of then-governor Murtala Nyako.
Binani’s participation paved way for earlier projections in some media quarters to the effect that she was sailing home to victory as the first female elected Governor in Nigeria.
After securing her party’s ticket and throughout the election cycle, Mrs. Ahmed was seen as the best chance yet for a woman to be elected as Governor in Nigeria’s 62 years of post-independence politics.
