Adamawa Guber: INEC Urged to Review Results of 16 LGs Before Re-run

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has been called upon to review the results of 16 Local Government Areas in the March 18 governorship election in Adamawa State before going ahead with its planned re-run.

The INEC had declared the governorship election in the state inconclusive after it cancelled results from the affected local governments due to violence and over-voting and has accordingly slated a re-run for March 29.

However, a civil right advocacy group, the Human Rights Writers Association of Nigeria (HURIWA), has advised the commission against going ahead with the scheduled re-run without first carrying out a review of the results from 16 local governments.

“HURIWA is asking INEC loud and clear to immediately without any further delay to review the results of the Adamawa election in some of the local government areas whereby elections were clearly characterised by unmitigated violence and over-voting.

“Going ahead with the rerun without the fundamental review of the results, is as good as saying good bye to credible, free, fair and transparent electoral process and history will be so unkind to Professor Yakubu Mahmud and his boys/girls,” said National Coordinator of HURIWA, Mr. Emmanuel Onwubiko.

Onwubiko further advised that the electoral umpire to follow the precedence already set with the Enugu and Abia governorship elections wherein INEC took some hours to review certain contentious results from some local government collation centres in Abia and Enugu before reaching a determination, which received widespread positive acceptance and overwhelming rejoicing in Abìa and Enugu States.

He asked: “If INEC did the reviews of Enugu and Abia gubernatorial election before announcing the results, what stops the commission from doing this review comprehensively and thoroughly in Adamawa State before conducting the rerun that has been scheduled?

It should be recalled that the INEC had a few days ago declared the March 18 governorship election in Adamawa State as inconclusive.

The final results collated by the INEC for Adamawa governorship election revealed that Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples’ Democratic Party (PDP), got the highest number of votes.

However, the INEC announced that cancelled votes at the election were more than the margin of win between Fintiri and the runner-up, Senator Aishatu Binani of the All Progressives Congress (APC).

As at the time the election was declared inconclusive, Fintiri was leading Binani, with a margin of over 30,000 votes; while Fintiri polled 421,524 votes, Binani polled 390,275 votes.

Meanwhile, the rights group has called on security agencies to arrest and immediately prosecute all those accused of rigging the election as well as committing other acts of violence, adding that the failure of the police to secure the election adversely affected its conduct.

“HURIWA repeats loudly that nobody is above the law of the land and if anyone is found wanting with regards to the violence that marred the gubernatorial election in Adamawa State that made the election to be declared inconclusive, must be arrested, prosecuted and punished to serve as deterrence,” he said.