A protest has been launched against requests for a review of the governorship election in Adamawa State.
The Coalition of INEC Accredited Domestic Election Observers claimed that INEC did a good job of calling the election inconclusive and setting up a new election when the irregularities of the first one will be fixed.
Comrade Victor Kalu, the coalition’s leader, said INEC should be supported to conduct a credible rerun rather than suggesting a review.
“The call for the total review or cancellation of the election at this time by some groups is like changing the goal post at the middle of the game in order to secure a cheap goal,” Victor Kalu said.
Recall that INEC had declared the March governorship election in Adamawa inconclusive after the collation of results from the last local government area resulted in 421,524 votes for the leading candidate, Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP); and 390,275 votes for the closest challenger, Aishatu Ahmed Binani of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
INEC had declared the election inconclusive for the reason that the margin of lead between the two candidates, being 31,249; was lower than the number of cancelled votes, being 37,016.
Opposed to the idea of holding the repeat election only in polling units where elections were cancelled, however, some interest groups have been urging a review of the election in many local government areas not identified by INEC.
The APC has indicated as many as 16 out of the 21 LGAs for review, clearly the LGAs where the party did badly, where they alleged irregularities.