Adamawa APC rejects inconclusive guber poll

The All Progressives Congress (APC) in Adamawa state has rejected results of the governorship election conducted on Saturday.

Mustapha Salisu, zonal national vice chairman of the party, accused officials of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of colluding with the army to alter results.

The commission had on Sunday declared the election “inconclusive” because the margin between the two top contestants was not as much  as the number of votes cancelled across 44 polling units.

Jibrilla Bindow, the incumbent governor and APC candidate had polled 334,995 vote while Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 367,471, a margin of 32,476 as against 40,988 cancelled votes.

Salisu said the incumbent governor polled more votes in the areas were the election was cancelled, thereby giving the PDP an “unfair advantage” over Bindow.

He said places like Demsa, Song, Lamurde, Numan, Michika and Madagali were largely affected by cases of violence, faulty card readers and over voting at different levels including the polling unit, wards, local government and the state collation centres.

“During the collation exercise, we have itemised the local governments where card readers were not used, where there were over-voting, intimidation of our supporters, and many irregularities,” he said.

“There are petitions we filed and were all serially rejected at the units, wards, the local governments level and to some extent even at the state collation. Our petitions were rejected.

“It is evident that the whole process has been compromised. In view of these anomalies and occurrences, particularly in Demsa Local Government, where proper elections did not take place and our agents were intimidated and harassed from being able to witness the collation; and also in Lamurde, Guyuk and Numan, we said the results announced there are unacceptable.

“So as a party, we reject the results of the governorship election in Adamawa state in its totality and we call for the cancellation of all these places where card readers were not used, and where there was over-voting or extreme violence against our agents.”

In his own reaction, Fintiri called on his supporters to “remain calm as victory is already on their side.”