Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of Adamawa State yesterday received his certificate of return, describing the exercise that led to his re-election as toughest.
Fintiri and his deputy, Kaletapwa Farauta, received their certificates at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) headquarters in Abuja.
He 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 the suspended Resident Electoral Commission (REC) for Adamawa State, Barrister Hudu Yunusa-Ari, controversially declared Binani winner while the process was ongoing.
Speaking after collecting his CoR from Dr. 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.
According to him, stakeholders in the electoral process should learn from the lessons they went through in the last week so that they can continue to build on the process and on the country’s democracy.
“It is unfortunate that we have to go through all these to arrive at this moment today. This should have been finished and done by the 18th of March. But unfortunately, because of the attitude of some individuals among us, and the discretion of some politicians, it has to drag this long for us to be here,” he said.
