VANGUARD
The suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Adamawa State, Hudu Yunusa Ari, has clarified that he announced results of 69 polling units in the April 15 supplementary election due to security pressure.
Ari stated this in a letter addressed to the Inspector-General of Police, Usman Alkali Baba, explaining his side of the story in the controversial April 16 declaration of the governorship election, which put the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Aishatu Ahmed Binani as winner against the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate and governor of the state, Ahmadu Fintiri.
In the letter, which was copied the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS), Ari stated he acted within the ambit of the law to avert looming danger of the delay in announcing the results, especially because he realised that the results brought by the presiding officers from the 69 polling units, which he did not sign, differed from those uploaded on the INEC Result Viewing (IReV) portal.
Ari listed the attempts to replace him as the collation officer with the administrative secretary, threats by candidates to cause mayhem, commissioners appointing ‘illegal collation officers’, and his house being surrounded by policemen from the Government House as some of the risks he faced in the course of the election.
