By Sheriff Ibrahim

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has finally declared Governor Ahmadu Fintiri winner  of the supplementary election in Adamawa State.

In last Saturday’s rerun, Fintiri, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 9,337 votes besting Senator Aishatu ‘Binani’ Dahiru of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who scored 6,513 votes.

At the end of the entire exercise, Fintiri polled 430,861 votes, defeating Binani who got 398,738 votes.

The announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) at 5:49 pm on Tuesday was preceded by a series of political intrigues.

With last month’s governorship election declared inconclusive by INEC, a supplementary election was scheduled for last Saturday.

However, on Sunday, as collation was underway, the state Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Hudu Yunusa Ari, prematurely declared Binani as the winner, contrary to the provisions of the Electoral Act.

Section 25 of the Electoral Act, 2022 empowers only the returning officer to announce the result and declare the winner of an election at the state collation centre in the case of election of a governor of a state.

Incidentally, results had been declared for only 10 of the 20 local government areas (LGAs) in the supplementary poll, which indicated Fintiri was leading, having won in seven LGAs next to Binani’s three.

The declaration by Ari was quickly followed by an acceptance speech by the APC candidate.

In response, irate opposition members took their anger out on an INEC national commissioner, whom they mistook for the REC, assaulting him.