Suspended Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner Hudu Yunusa Ari, still insist that Senator  Aisha Binani won the 2023 governorship election in Adamawa, according to a letter he sent to the Force Headquarters on April 20, copied also to the director-general of the State Security Service (SSS), National Security Adviser (NSA) and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),

Mr Ari asserted that the two national commissioners, Baba Bila and Professor Abdullahi Zuru, who had been tasked to assist him with the supplementary election on March 15, were secretly working with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the results

Mr Yunusa Ari said he belatedly uncovered that the INEC officials held secret meetings with Governor Fintiri at the Government House Yola at about 8:31 p.m. on Friday, the night before the election, where they perfected plans to change the collation officers and alter the election results.

Mr. Ari also said on election day, the state’s commissioner of police furnished him with findings of a plot that exposed how some politicians had hired Boko Haram terrorists to snatch ballot boxes and disrupt the polls,.

The electoral commissioner said he quickly complied and directed that all ad-hoc staff conduct collation at the commission’s headquarters office in Dougirei, Yola.

He said he did not realize that the two assisting national commissioners had plans of their own as they “quietly and secretly gave out conflicting counter directives” to the electoral officers, adding that the counter-directives also said that collation should be done in the local government areas with new local government collation officers that he was “not aware of.”

“This is without my knowledge or authorisation as the Resident Electoral Commissioner as recognised by laws establishing INEC and Electoral Act,” Mr Yunusa Ari said, absolving himself of complicity and any wrongdoing.

He would later find out Messrs Bila and Zuru flouted his order and quietly collated results at local governments using “self-appointed, unapproved and illegal collation officers.”

Mr Ari explained that while he was preparing for state collation, he was shocked to learn that his name had not only been excluded but “replaced with that of the administrative secretary to take charge of collation.”

He questioned the assisting national commissioners but got no explanation. Instead, they “declared that I was nowhere to be found.”

He said he was placed under house arrest by security officers from the Government House Yola, and the police commissioner deployed mobile officers to rescue him.

“It took the intervention of the commissioner of police who sent mobile policemen to my house, and when they heard a call was made to the CP, the policemen from Government House fled in a white Toyota Hilux van, Mr Yunusa Ari recounted.

Around 1:00 a.m. on April 16, Mr Yunusa Ari said he went to the collation centre where Messrs Bila and Zuru had been sleeping to remind them he was still the state’s REC and that all stakeholders for the re-run election should return to the collation centre by 11:00 a.m. later that day.  

The electoral commissioner said upon reviewing results uploaded on the INEC IREV portal, he discovered discrepancies as “the results on the portal were different because the results on the INEC portal were not signed by me.”

Mr Yunusa Ari said he summoned a meeting of security chiefs, including the police commissioner, SSS, commandant of the Civil Defence and others, to conclude the supplementary elections and prevent a breakdown of law and order.

After compiling the results, he found Senator Aisahtu Binani to be the candidate with the highest number of valid votes and subsequently declared her winner of the Adamawa governorship elections.

“It was based on this that 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,” Mr Ari wrote in the letter.

He added: “The breakdown of the valid votes scored by the two leading candidates in the supplementary election using the results from the polling units as collated into all relevant Forms EC8B, C,D and E respectively by properly and legally appointed and recognised collation officers and my humble self as Adamawa state Chief Collation Officer and Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).”

Mr Yunusa Ari’s said his declaration led thugs loyal to the PDP to descend on the two other INEC commissioners for failing to alter the election results to favour the incumbent governor in spite of accepting bribes from his team.

“So, immediately after the declaration, some PDP supporters attacked one of the National Commissioners, Prof. Abdullahi Zuru as well as the Returning Officer, Prof. Muhammed Mele for failing to deliver Mr. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri in the election after collecting money from him,” Mr Ari said.

Meanwhile, he claimed that one SSS operative who knew about the bribes given to the national commissioners was also overpowered, disarmed and whisked to the Government House, where he was assaulted by both police and “thugs loyal to PDP.”

In light of all the events leading to Mr Fintiri’s so-called victory, Mr Ari stressed that the result collated by the two national commissioners “is shrouded in doubt which is unacceptable and therefore illegal.”

Mr Ari defended his actions to be well within his rights as contained in the Electoral Act 2022.

“I want to categorically say that my action is within the responsibility vested on me and within the ambit law, particularly of the Electoral Act 2022 as amended.”

In the letter, Mr Yunusa Ari reaffirmed his position as the chief collation officer

with additional report from Nationnewslea