Adamu Muhammad Dodo
The most intersting political setting in the 2023 electioneering atmosphere in Nigeria is Adamawa state with the governorship election right from the party primaries.
The PDP governorship candidate is the sitting Governor, Rt Hon Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, his unopposed nomination without passing through the party primary election was challenged up to supreme court, he however won.
Even though, in an interesting primaries, the lone female governorship candidate, the Most Distinguished Senator Aisharu Dahiru Ahmed, a.k.a Binani won with a wide margin, her overwhelming celebrated victory was challenged before the law by the second runner. Like Fintiri, Binani’s candidature was also legitimised before the law.
Binani was first to face the support challenge from within her immediate family, her immediate constituency and from within her party. It was a challenge tougher than that of the ruling party candidate.
Binani’s overwhelming supporters across the state during campaign have indeed intimidated not only other opposition parties but also the ruling party.
The campaign of calumny, the Binani hate theology and the Fatwa against Binani as a female for Governor would not pull her down. She moved on, in spite of the opposition left, right and centre, she courageously justified the amazing amazon in her, the political heroine of Adamawa indeed.
Unarguably, the governorship election in the state and for the state was marred by violence, ballot box snatching and stuffing, BVAS bipass, results swapping and other election irregularities for which the amazing amazon insisted that results must be revisited by INEC using iREV. Whether or not Binani’s call was considered, the governorship election was by the INEC returning officer declared inconclusive.
There was the suspicion of foul play associated with the governorship supplementary election that would not be tolerated by the Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC Ari, as a remedy and the way he knew how best to arrive at it, while the collation of the results he was uncomfortable with the process of generating it was ongoing, he was to declare Binani as the winner of the 2023 governorship election, making her the first eclected female governor in the country.
Binani’s acceptance speech was a call for better Adamawa with the full participation of the previous governors with other stakeholders as a collective undertaking. She promised to do justice and to be fair to all, irrespective of the ethnoreligious sentiment. It wss indeed a call for unity, mutual coexistence and good participatory leadership.
INEC at the national level was however not comfortable with what was considered as REC Ari’s unilateral declaration of Binani as governor, but she was already declared; to undermine it, it has directed that the process of the supplementary governorship election should be completed. The completion has produced Fintiri as another Governor Elect as declared by the returning officer, Prof Mele.
Now the question before the law remains who is the genuine Governor Elect of the two declarations? No conjecture, no propaganda, no hate speech theology, no fatwa against the personality, a political theorists would give an opinion that only the certificate of return would determine the declared rather genuinely Governor Elect and the agreeved to head to court.