Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa state on Wednesday received a certificate of return as governor-elect for the North-Eastern Nigerian state.
Fintiri and his deputy, Kaletapwa Farauta received their certificates of return at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja, the nation’s capital city.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate was declared winner of the Adamawa governorship supplementary election on Tuesday, having garnered 430,861 votes to defeat his closest rival, Aisha Dahiru-Binani of the All Progressive Congress (APC) who scored 398,788 votes.
INEC had on Sunday suspended the collation of the election results after Hudu Ari, the Resident Electoral Commission (REC) for Adamawa state declared Binani winner while the process was ongoing.
The commission however, resumed collation on Tuesday afternoon after which it declared Fintiri winner while punitive measures have been taken against the REC who has been barred from office and recommended for police probe and prosecution.
Speaking after collecting his certificate of return from Baba Billa, INEC National Commissioner for North-East, Fintiri said the exercise was his toughest election because of the external manipulation that was coming from Abuja.
Governor Fintiri said stakeholders in the electoral process should learn from the lessons they went through in the last one week so that they can continue to build on the process and on the country’s democracy.
