Fleeing INEC REC Speaks From Hiding, Insists Binani Won Adamawa

Hudu Yunusa Ari, a Resident Electoral Commissioner who fled from Adamawa after controversially announcing the state governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the election, has broken his silence while in hiding. In a letter he sent to the Nigerian Police, which was copied to the director-general of the State Security Service, the National Security Adviser, and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Yunusa Ari accused two national commissioners, Baba Bila and Abdullahi Zuru, of secretly working with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the results. He said he belatedly uncovered that INEC officials held secret meetings with Governor Ahmadu 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. Yunusa Ari explained that he complied with the police’s advice to move the collation from local government areas to the state’s INEC headquarters, but he did not realize that the two assisting national commissioners had plans of their own. Instead, they collated results at local governments using “self-appointed, unapproved, and illegal collation officers.” He also said that he was placed under house arrest by security officers from the Government House Yola, and the police commissioner deployed mobile officers to rescue him. After reviewing the uploaded results on the INEC IREV portal, Yunusa Ari discovered discrepancies and summoned a meeting of security chiefs to conclude the supplementary elections and prevent a breakdown of law and order. After compiling the results, he found that Aisha Dahiru Binani, the APC candidate, had the most valid votes and subsequently declared her the winner of the Adamawa governorship elections.