I Acted Within Law In Declaring Binani Winner Of Adamawa Guber, Says Ex-REC

Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari, the suspended Resident Electoral Commission (REC) for Adamawa State, defended his actions in declaring the results of 69 polling places in the state’s supplemental governorship election on April 15 by saying that he followed the rules.

In a letter to the inspector general of police, the REC claimed that intimidation and threats had been made against him prior to his controversial declaration of Aishatu Ahmed (Binani), the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), as the winner over Ahmadu Fintiri, the state governor and candidate for the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), on Sunday, April 16.

He maintained that he operated within his authority and in accordance with the law and the Electoral Act of 2022 when he declared Binani the election’s victor and unequivocally stated that the later results released by the two national commissioners were clouded in doubt and an unsatisfactory outcome of the election.

Ari wrote that his announcement of the results helped avert impending danger of the delay in announcing the results, especially because he realized that the results brought by the presiding officers from the 69 polling units, which he did not sign, differed from those uploaded on the IREV portal. The letter was also sent to the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the Director General of the Department of State Services (DSS).

“I compiled all the polling unit results and declared the winner of the election based on the highest number of valid votes scored by the candidate of the All-Progressives Congress (APC), Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani,” Ari said in the four-page letter.

“The breakdown of the valid votes cast for the two front-runners in the supplementary election using the results from the polling units as collated into all pertinent Forms EC8B, C, D, and E by duly appointed and acknowledged collation officers and my humble self as Adamawa State Chief Collation Officer and Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC)”

Prior to the announcement, I had access to an intelligence assessment stating that the two National Commissioners met with the Governor of Adamawa State, Mr. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri, at the Government House Yola at 8:31 p.m. on April 15, 2023.

He continued by saying that some PDP supporters attacked two commissioners as soon as he announced the results because they reportedly failed to deliver Governor Fintiri and other individuals in a supposed video.

He continued by describing what happened on that day, saying, “In the evening, as I was getting ready for state collation, all seats for ICCES members were prepared, and when I arrived there, my name was changed to that of the Administrative Secretary to take control of collation. The National Commissioners were then asked to provide a justification for why they would exclude me from the results collection process, but none was provided. The National Commissioners finally declared that | was not to be discovered.

Someone called me shortly after the announcement to let me know about the new information. The two National Commissioners were among those sleeping when I returned to the collation center around 1:00 am on Sunday, April 16, 2023. I informed them that I was still the Resident Electoral Commissioner and that all parties involved in the rerun election should report to the collation center by 11:00 am on Sunday, April 16, 2023. It’s crucial to remember that even though the National Commissioners disregarded the security warnings issued by the Commissioner of Police, they allegedly did cause collation at numerous sites by their self-appointed, unauthorized, and unlawful collation officials.

I learned in the meantime that the collations at the various centers were far from satisfactory. As a result of the pressure and the numerous calls from party agents and candidates threatening mayhem if I did not trust the National Commissioners’ instructions to collate the results at the various collation centers, I took a hard look at myself and decided to request all 69 polling unit results.

I received the official results submitted by the presiding officers (POs) of all sixty-nine polling units and compared them with the results that were uploaded on the IREV INEC portal. I discovered that the results on the portal were different because the results on the INEC portal were not signed by me, thus preventing the impending danger of the delay in announcing the results of the supplementary elections.