By Fatima Zahra Mohammed
The Adamawa state governor, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri has accused the the state governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani of he stealing the electoral mandate of the people.
The governor made the accusation when he appeared on ChannelsTV’s Political program, (Politics Today) on Sunday.
Fintiri also described the election as the most credible since the creation of the state.
According to him, Binani is desperate to become the Governor by all means and spreads lies that she won the election, even when results from Foture, Song, and Michika local government areas were yet to be collated.
“Binani on Sunday Morning, on her Twitter handle, declared herself the winner of the election. She is not an empire of this election; she doesn’t have the authority to declare herself the winner; she misled the world because she is desperate to become the governor. The truth has come out, she is far behind with over 31,000 votes,” Fintiri said.
On the election credibility, the governor said that the over voting occasioned by the voters’ level of literacy, and for the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) to have canceled the Polling Units (PU) with record of over-voting, made the election more credible.
According to him, though the election was not characterized by violence, Binani was the cause of the violence that engulfed Fofure local government.
Ahmadu alleged that the APC governorship candidate sent her political thugs to snatch the summary of the election result in the afternoon of Sunday after elections at the PUs were conducted successfully.
He said Binani, despite winning the election of Fofure local government, but discovering that she had lost in 20 local governments, went ahead to try to change the result.
Ahmadu commended INEC for having invested so much in technology, resources, and capacity building, which according to him, made Binani not to be able to manipulate the local government results.
He distanced himself from rigging the election and denied all allegations that he was in Fofure, the venue of the election saga.
“Because I was already leading, Fofure was the only local government left for them to perfect their rigging plans. She sent one of her boy to steal the summary sheet of the result when they were tabulating it,” he said.
Ahmadu also denied holding anyone hostage, while revealing that the same returning officer that conducted the election exercise in Fofure was the same officer that declare the result at the INEC state collation center in Yola.
“As I told you, these are people who are pathological liars. They have lost the election. Because of desperation they don’t want to accept the reality on the ground. They are still thinking that we are still in the stone age.
“The Resident Election Officer (REC), after realizing there was ballot stuffing, called the returning officer and told him I’m sending a new result sheet to you and make sure you help that woman because I’m under duress from above,” he alleged.
He accused Adamawa REC, Barr. Yunusa Hudu of being a prime suspect and crux of the entire hullabaloo of the present situation of an inconclusive election in the state.
“He thought they can use the new summary result sheets to change the results figure in favor of Binani when he discovered they cannot tamper with the result, he delayed declaring the result until Monday at 2 pm. By this time, his calculation was to tamper with the INEC RVAs portal to give the woman the margin votes of winning election all to no avail because INEC had perfected the technology of rigging election,” Fintiri accused the REC.
He added that “Binani has been the one perpetrating fraud in collating the results; she kept sending her men and boys to keep snatching results sheets at the point of collation.”
