INEC suspends Adamawa guber election results collation over mixup

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has suspended the collation of results in the Adamawa State governorship election over a mix-up in results from Fufore Local Government Area (LGA).

The Returning Officer, Prof. Mohammed Mele and the Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner, Yakubu Ari, said collation will resume at 12pm today, Monday, March 20, 2023, with the hope that the contentious results from Fufore LGA would have been reconciled.

The governorship contest in the North-Eastern state has generated rapt national attention due to the involvement of a female candidate, Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed popularly known as Binani, who is on the threshold of history as the first female governor-elect in Nigeria.

Binani is squaring up against the incumbent governor and Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Ahmadu Fintiri, who is fighting to secure a re-election.

However, a scuffle broke out at the INEC electoral results collation centre in Yola, the Adamawa State capital on Sunday night over allegations that the results sheet from the local government in question has been doctored and snatched by thugs.

Prior to the incident, the commission had announced results from 20 out of the 21 LGAs in the state with the two frontline candidates following each other neck-and-neck.

However, the PDP agents contested that the figures from Fufore, which is also the ancestral local government of the APC candidate, have been inflated which prompted INEC to call for a suspension so that it can pull figures from its results viewing portal, IReV, and reconcile.