The collation of results for the Adamawa Governorship Supplementary elections, which resumed late Saturday night with results from 10 councils collated puts Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, in the lead over his rival from the All Progressives Congress, Senator Aishatu Dahiru Binani.
The exercise kicked off at exactly 9:30 pm on Saturday night with results from Demsa and Yola South Local Government Areas presented at the collation centre by the local government returning officers.
Results from eight council areas which were later collated in addition to those of Demsa and Yola South showed Governor Fintiri adding to his lead of 31,249 with wins in Demsa, Lamurde, Jada, Ganye, Song, Maiha, Hong and Shelleng while Sen. Binani won only in Yola North and Yola South out of 10 council areas, of results so far released in the Adamawa Supplementary Governorship elections.
There was however drama when journalists sought to know whether Yunusa Ari, Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner, had recused himself from proceeding with the conduct of supplementary elections, as demanded by the Peoples Democratic Party in Adamawa.
The PDP which complained about the neutrality of the REC over a leaked audio tape, in which the REC could be heard asking the electoral officer in Fufore to help “This woman” surfaced the party has continued to question the impartiality of the REC as an unbiased umpire.
But as the collation exercise has begun, rather than the REC presiding over the affairs, it was instead the Administrative Secretary of the commission in the state, Adamu Gujugu who issued the ground rules for the commencement of collation.
The results from the 10 Councils as collated at the time of filing this report, showed Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, still remains in pole position in the race to the Dougirei government house over Sen Binani in the polls.
As it stands Fintiri has garnered a total of 3, 881 votes out of the 37,016 votes being contested in the supplementary polls while Sen. Binani has polled 2,527 of the votes.
Collation of Governorship will resume later at 11 am on Sunday, the embattled REC, Barrister Yunusa Ari announced the suspension of Collation when he made a surprise return to superintend over the conduct of the supplementary polls.