Supreme Court Affirms Election of Fintiri as Adamawa Gov

Alex Enumah in Abuja

The tussle for the governorship seat of Adamawa State has been laid to rest as the Supreme Court has ruled that Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) is the validly elected givernor if the state.

A five-member panel of the apex court on Wednesday dismissed the appeal by Senator Aisha Dahiru Binani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) seeking to upturn the declaration of Ahmadu Fintiri as Governor of Adamawa.

The five-member panel in a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice John Okoro dismissed the appeal for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

The apex court having dismissed the appeal affirmed the concurrent judgments of the Court of Appeal and the Adamawa Governorship Election Petition Tribunal, which affirmed the declaration of Fintiri as the winner of the March 18 governorship election and April 16 rerun election.

The apex court pointed out that the appeal was grossly incompetent because the appellants/ petitioners did not prove that Fintiri and his party, the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) did not win the governorship election.

In faulting the appeal, one of the justices, Ibrahim Saulawa pointed out that the appellants did not only call very few witnesses ( three witnesses from 27 local governments areas) but that the witnesses were irrelevant to their cause.

Saulawa stated that it was wrong for appellants and their lawyers to use Section 137 of the Electoral Act, 2022 to “dump documents on the courts”.

Besides, the apex court further held that the Resident Electoral Commission (REC) who had announced Binani and APC as winner of the Adamawa governorship election lacked necessary powers to do so.

The apex court subsequently dismissed the appeal for being incompetent and lacking in merit.

Details later.