Senator Binani loses legal battle to get reinstated as Adamawa State governor-elect

ALL Progressive Congress (APC) gubernatorial candidate in the recent Adamawa State elections Senator Aisha Dahiru-Ahmed popularly known as Binani has lost a legal battle to get her defeat overturned after an Abuja high court dismissed her appeal today.

In what was a fierce race, Senator Binani of the APC and incumbent Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) were involved in a close battle for Adamawa State Government House. Following the original election on March 18, Governor Fintiri had scored 421, 524 votes ahead of Senator Binani who got 390, 275 votes.

However, Governor Fintiri could not be declared the winner by the state returning officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, of the University of Maiduguri because the margin of lead did not exceed the number of cancelled votes in 69 polling units. A supplementary election was thus held earlier this month, after which Governor Fintiri was declared the winner, albeit after a lot of drama involving a rogue Independent National Electoral Commission (Inec) official.

Hudu Yunusa-Ari, Inec's resident electoral commissioner in Adamawa State had declared Senator Binani the governor-elect, following the supplementary election. He did so while the votes were still being counted and despite the fact that he was not legally empowered to do so, as this was the job of the returning officer.

Inec immediately disassociated itself from the pronouncement and there have been calls for the prosecution of Mr Yunusa-Ari for his actions, saying it threatened the peace. Senator Binani immediately went to court, seeking an order upholding Mr Yunusa-Ari's declaration but Justice Inyang Ekwo of a federal high court, Abuja, has dismissed the suit.

Senator Binani had through her lawyer, Hussaini Zakariyau, sought a judicial review of the administrative decision of Inec on April 16 in respect of her declaration as the winner of the governorship elections held on March 18 and the supplementary poll of April 15. She also sought an order of prohibition and certiorari preventing Inec and its agents from taking any further steps towards the declaration of the winner of the elections pending the determination of her application for judicial review.

Giving grounds why the motion should be granted, Senator Binani stated that after the collation of results, Inec declared her as the winner of the elections but the PDP and its candidate, Governor Fintiri, resorted to fighting and causing a public disturbance which led to the beating and manhandling of staff. This crisis, she said, led Inec to cancel the initial declaration which it had no power to do as only the election petition tribunal is vested with such powers.