Binta Garba to INEC: Use IReV portal to authenticate Adamawa guber poll results

Binta Garba, a former senator from Adamawa, has asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to review the March 18 governorship election in the state.

Speaking in an interview on Channels Television, on Friday, Garba alleged that the election was characterised by overvoting and manipulation of results.

On March 20, the electoral commission declared the governorship election in the state as inconclusive.

Mohammed Mele, the collation officer, announced that Ahmadu Fintiri, the incumbent governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), scored 421,524 votes while Aisha Binani, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), polled 390, 275 votes.

Mele said the margin between the two top candidates was less than the total number of potential voters — 37,016 — in 69 polling units where elections were cancelled.

However, Binani had asked INEC to review the results of some LGAs

The electoral umpire had fixed April 15 for the supplementary election in the state.

Reacting to the development, the former senator asked INEC to ensure that the results are authenticated with the numbers of accredited voters recorded by the bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS) machines.

“In one of the 16 wards in my local government, there were two polling units (oo9 and 003), and there was overvoting in these polling units. When we were called upon, I asked the INEC staff what the electoral law stipulates about overvoting,” she said.

“Prior to the election, INEC made it known that if you have one vote over and above the BVAS accreditation, obviously there is an overvoting. So, polling unit 009 had an overvoting of one, while polling unit 003 had two.

“Right there, the INEC staff affirmed this and on the INEC form, they recorded zero for both PDP and APC. But to my amazement, the result from polling unit 009 was included for PDP votes, while a rerun is being organised for 003.

“I’m pleading with the INEC chairman, the women of Adamawa and Nigeria are pleading that they should check and authenticate the BVAS.”