Tribunal throws out Binani’s petition, affirms gov Fintiri’s election

The Adamawa state governorship election petition tribunal on Saturday, upheld the re-election of Umaru Fintiri as the duly elected governor of the state in the March 2023 governorship election.

The judgement by the tribunal is coming after some controversial moment that greeted the governorship poll which dragged into a supplementary election.

At the end of the drama-filled exercise which ended in April, Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), polled 430,861 votes, defeating Aisha ‘Binani’ Dahiru of the All Progressives Congress (APC) who got 398,738 votes.

Senator Binani and some other contestants had approached the tribunal seeking the nullification of the victory of Fintiri but the court on Saturday upheld the second term victory of the incumbent governor after striking out her petition.

Recall that the then Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Adamawa State, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, had caused controversy during the supplementary election on April 15, 2023, when he announced ‘Binani’ as the winner of the dramatic poll while the collation of results was ongoing.

The situation had prompted INEC to void Yunusa-Ari’s decision and suspended him while the then President Muhammadu Buhari ordered a full scale probe on the electoral commissioner and the security operatives that were around him when he made the declaration.

Yunusa-Ari was later arrested and handed over to the police for prosecution.

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