Politics
THE Adamawa State chapter of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said that it had no fear of taking part in the rerun of the state governorship election after the Independent National Electoral Commission declared the Saturday’s exercise inconclusive.
Returning officer in the state, Prof Andrew Haruna, explained while declaring the results around 3am on Monday that a rerun was necessary because the number of votes cancelled was more than the victory margin recorded. According to him, a total of 1,973,083 voters were registered for the election with 894,481 voters accredited. He said that after the Saturday election, 40,988 votes were cancelled in 44 polling units across the state, which was more than the margin recorded between the winner and the runner-up. Haruna said that the call for a rerun was backed by electoral law.
The PDP candidate, Ahmadu Fintiri, led the Saturday election with 32,476 votes after polling 367,471 ahead of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Jibrilla Bindow, who scored 334,995 votes. Bindow is seeking re-election.
In an exclusive interview with one of our correspondents, Chairman of the PDP in the state, Tahir Shehu, alleged that the APC colluded with INEC to resolve to a rerun, describing the situation as unfortunate.
“We consider INEC action as unfortunate because before the announcement, we have heard it from APC leaders in the state that INEC would cancel results in areas where we had dominance.
“It is however fortunate for us because there is no magic that will make APC score above the lead we have established. The areas where elections were canceled are PDP stronghold and we established this during the presidential election. We are leading with 32,476 votes and the total votes we are fighting for in the rerun are 40,998 votes. We are still highly hopeful of winning,” he said.
When contacted by one of our correspondents, the state Residence Electoral Commissioner, Kassim Gaidam, said a date for the rerun had yet to be fixed and that it would be communicated as soon as a decision on the date was taken.
In Madagali, rerun will take place in three polling units while in Michika, the exercise will take place in five polling units. At Mubi North area of the state, rerun will also take place in three polling units while Hong, Song and Demsa have four polling units each where rerun will take place. – Punch
– Mar. 11, 2019 @ 18:05 GMT |
Tags: Adamawa rerun: We are ready for fresh battle – PDP
