Adamawa rerun: Governorship election not won by sentiment – Fintiri chides Binani

Four days to the scheduled governorship rerun election in Adamawa State, supporters of Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, rallied for him Wednesday with a message to the camp of Aishatu Ahmed Binani of the All Progressives Congress, APC, to allow the rerun a normal and peaceful course.

Support groups of PDP’s Fintiri, who organised a solidarity street walk, said Binani and her supporters were deploying sentiments, including an expressed sense of entitlement suggesting gifting of the governorship to her because she is a woman.

The support groups also made direct and indirect references to the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Adamawa State, Hudu Ari, on whom the PDP camp has long passed a vote of no confidence, especially after an audio went virile in the course of the initial March 18 election allegedly of him soliciting electoral favour for Binani.

In view of the rerun, declared following discovery after the March 18 election that cancelled votes were higher than the margin of lead, the Fintiri support groups expressed their thoughts on placards and through their leaders.

Some of the placards read: ‘Elections are won by hard work’, ‘We demand free and fair rerun’, ‘Adamawa is a peaceful state, INEC should not ruin our peace’, ‘Beware of a referee-turned Number 9 striker’, among others.

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A lead Fintiri supporter, Alhaji Abdulrahman Bobboi, who spoke for the support groups, said that against the allegation by the APC that PDP rigged the March 18 governorship election, the PDP got its lead from legitimate votes and that results of the presidential, national and state assembly elections proved that Adamawa is a PDP state.

The Director General of the PDP Governorship Campaign Council in the state, Dr Awwal Tukur, who received the support groups at a stopover opposite the Government House in Yola, reiterated that with two PDP Senators-elect out of three, seven PDP House of Representatives members-elect out of eight, and with 12 House of Assembly members-elect out of the 21 determined so far, Adamawa is indeed a PDP state.

“PDP is winning and this will be clear on Saturday. We are winning because we worked for victory. You can’t win governorship by sentiment,” Awwal Tukur said.

PDP’s Fintiri is going into the March 18 rerun election with 421,524 votes, being 31,249 higher than the 390,375 votes received by Binani in the initial election but 5,767 less than the maximum 37,016 votes expected from the scheduled rerun.