Senator Aishat Dahiru Binani, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate for governor in the most recent gubernatorial election in Adamawa State, has charged that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has obstructed her petition challenging the declaration of Adamu Fintri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as the victor.Binani claimed that the electoral body is currently trying desperately to arrest and detain the suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner, Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari as a ploy to prevent him from testifying for her at the ongoing Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.
This is done in a blatant display of bias and disregard for the court's order, according to Binani.Alhaji Mustapha Umar Madawaki appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to call INEC to order so that the APC candidate could reclaim her mandate from the election while speaking at a press conference on behalf of Binani on Saturday in Abuja. The APC Returning Officer at the Mach 18 governorship election and the rerun of April 15 were both members of the APC.
Madawaki claimed that INEC wanted the suspended REC apprehended and kept out of circulation so he wouldn't be available as a witness for the governorship candidate. He also claimed that INEC was conspiring with the state government and anti-Binani forces to thwart the diligent prosecution of the petition.The APC Returning Officer traced the origins of the election crisis and the petition that followed, alleging that INEC unlawfully and mysteriously replaced one group of trained ad hoc workers with another group of untrained staff who were not intended for result collation at the point of result collation.
He claimed that the illegal replacement of ad-hoc workers led to the production of election results that were different from those that the legitimate workers had actually provided.
In his opinion, this is a key factor in INEC's efforts to keep Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari, the former Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, from testifying before the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.They are worried about what he might reveal. Their blatant urgency led Justice A.O. Manji to forcefully interrogate the INEC attorney about why they are so eager to have Hudu Yunusa Ari detained despite a clear court order against it.
"In my opinion, that is also the reason why the Force Headquarters, which was run by the former Inspector General of Police (IGP), shot itself in the foot when it changed the earlier investigative report into the Adamawa elections—which had not found any evidence of an offense worthy of an indictment against Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari—to one they could use to swiftly detain and imprison him.
Both the authentic investigative report and the doctored version are available to us.
We have refrained from going into further detail about some of the issues since the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal is now hearing them because we are aware that these are serious charges.
Embassies and diplomatic missions will be involved in the fight to reclaim the candidate's allegedly stolen mandate, according to Madawaki, who portrayed Senator Binani as a victim of gender discrimination in her pursuit of the governorship.
