The incumbent Governor of Adamawa State, Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, has claimed powerful individuals in Abuja were bent on imposing a new governor on the people of the state.
He made this claim while speaking on Channels Television’s political programme, Politics Today, on Tuesday night.
Fintiri who spoke via Zoom from Yola said he did not contest against Aishatu Dahiru (Binani) of the All Progressives Congress (APC) but against the “whole system”.
Fintiri was Tuesday evening declared the winner of the 2023 governorship poll in Adamawa.
Declaring the results, the returning officer of the election, Professor Muhammed Mele, said the governor polled a total of 430,861 votes. Binani polled a total of 396,788 votes.
The collation was suspended on Sunday, following the unlawful declaration of Binani as the winner of the election in the state by the now-suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Barr Hudu Yunusa Ari.
While speaking about the saga, Fintiri said: “I don’t think I have run against any woman in Adamawa State, I ran against enemies of democracy outside Adamawa State.
“I contested against the whole system, I contested against those who feel they own Nigeria from Abuja and they feel they can make Adamawa a scapegoat.
“Even in the election, I didn’t go into the election against the woman, I went into the election against INEC. The whole presiding officers that were conducting the election, all of them were APC members.”
He said his performance in the last four years was what stood for him against the alleged enemies of democracy in Abuja.
He vowed to prosecute everyone involved in the election fiasco on Sunday since it happened in his state, if their respective organisations failed to prosecute them.