The incumbent Governor of Adamawa State, Rt Hon Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, has accused the Governorship Candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani as the “stealer of the state’s electoral mandate.”
Ahmadu stated this on Channels TV political programme, Politics Today, anchored on Sunday by Seun Akinbaloye.
Fintiri, who spoke about the outcome of the Governorship Election in the state, described the poll as the most credible in the history of Adamawa State since its creation.
The governor accused Binani of being desperate to become the next governor by all means while spreading lies to have won the election while results of the three Local Governments of Fofure, Song, and Michika have yet to be collated.
“Binani Sunday Morning on her Twitter handle she declared herself the winner of the election. She is not an umpire 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 thirty-one thousand votes,” Fintiri said
The governor, while responding to questions about the election’s credibility, maintained that despite overvoting because of voters’ level of literacy, the Independent Electoral Commission decided to cancel the Polling Units (PU) with over-voting records that made the election more credible.
According to him, the election was not characterized by violence as there was a report of that by INEC but Binani was the cause of the violence that engulfed Fofure Local Government.
Ahmadu said the APC governorship Candidate sent her political errand boys to snatch (steal) the summary of the election results 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 she had lost in 20 Local Government Areas, went ahead by trying to change the results.
He commended INEC for having invested so much in technology, resources, and capacity building, saying that was one of the reasons that made Binani unable to manipulate the Local Government results, “thinking that it’s a normal business of election rigging.”
Fintiri distanced himself from rigging the election and denied all allegations he was in Fofure, the venue of the election rigging saga, saying because he was leading with a good margin, he wouldn’t waste his time rigging the election.
“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 are tabulating it,” he said.
Ahmadu during the live interview television programme, stressed that he was never in Fofure but the people of Fofure were there to safeguard the entire exercise.
Ahmadu also denied holding anyone hostage, revealing that the same returning officer that conducted the election exercise in Fofure was the same officer that declared the results at the INEC state collation centre 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 he realized 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 accused Adamawa REC, Barr Yunusa Hudu of being a prime suspect and the cause of the entire hullabaloo and 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 can not temper with the result he delayed declaring the result until Monday at 2 pm. By this time his calculation was to temper with the INEC RVAs portal to give the woman the margin votes of winning election all to no avail because INEC has perfected the technology of rigging election,” Fintiri accused the REC .
He continued to say that Binani has been the one perpetrating fraud in collating the results whereas she kept sending her men and boys to keep snatching results sheets at the point of collation.