Election petition tribunal upholfs Fintiri’s election

Friday, October 11, 2019 8:51 pm

Governor Ahmed Fintiri of Adamawa State

The National Governorship Election Petition Tribunal sitting in Yola has dismissed a case filed by All Progressive Congress (APC) challenging the election of Gov. Ahmadu Fintiri of Peoples Democratic Party ( PDP)

The tribunal, headed by Justice Adediran Adebara, while giving its judgment on the petition on Friday, declared that the petition was dismissed because it lacked merit.

The tribunal chairman said the petitioner also failed to prove the case beyond reasonable doubt.

Adebara said the petitioner could not prove the case of over voting and non-compliance as well as irregularities during the March 2019 re-run governorship election.

The judge averred that even the witnesses of the petitioner APC were inconsistent in their submissions prompting him to discard their submissions.

The Counsel to the Respondent, Mr Leonard Zadon, said the judgment delivered was in order and a victory to law.

He said the victory was not only for PDP, but “been able to bring law as it is.”

The Counsel to the Petitioner (APC), Mr Ibrahim Efiong, said that although their petition was dismissed, they would wait and get the copy of the judgement and study it to determine where to go from there.

It could be recalled that INEC conducted the the Adamawa governorship re-run election on March 28, 2019 .

The Returning Officer, Prof. Andrew Haruna, declared the result on Friday morning in Yola after the supplementary election in 44 polling units across 14 local government areas of the state.

Fintiri polled 376,552 votes to defeat the incumbent Gov. Jibrilla Bindow of the All Progressives Congress who got 336,386 votes.