Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, risked at least 36 months imprisonment for announcing the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, Senator Aishatu Dahiru, popularly known as Binani as the winner of the governorship election in the state.
Yunusa-Ari on Sunday usurped the duties of the state governorship election returning officer by declaring Binani as winner while collation of results was still ongoing at the INEC collation center in Yola.
According to him, Binani had scored the highest number of votes hence his decision to declare her as the winner.
Yunusa, however, did not provide the data or the results with which she won the election.
“The APC scored the highest votes going by that Aishatu Binani is hereby declared as the elected governor of Adamawa State,” he said.
However the Independent National Electoral Commission had declared the announcement as null and void while summoning the REC to its headquarters in Abuja.
However, theLeadng gathered that the REC risked at least 3 years behind bar for usurping the power of the Returning Officer in announcing the result of the poll.
A former Director, Voter Education and Publicity at INEC, Oluwole Osaze-Uzzi, noted that Yunusa-Ari ought to face a sort of ‘inquisition.’
“It is to be noted that any person who announces or publishes an election result knowing the same to be false commits an offence and is liable to imprisonment for 36 months under section 120(4) of the Electoral Act, 2022.
“And under section 6(2) of the Act, the REC is answerable to the Commission,” he said
Osaze-Uzzi, who noted that INEC cannot discipline a REC, stressed that only the President acting on the resolution by the two-thirds majority of the Senate can remove the REC.
Also, a former INEC Director, Nick Dazang said, “By virtue of the regulations and guidelines for the conduct of the 2023 general elections, all returning and collation officers are appointees of the INEC Chairman.
“By declaring a purported winner when the process was ongoing, the REC, Adamawa usurped powers not delegated to him. He also acted unprofessionally.
It was also gathered that the REC would appear before a committee of the commission led by the National Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, on Monday.
How REC acted unprofessionally
It would be recalled that INEC had at 1:00am on Sunday shifted the announcement of the state supplementary election results to 11:00am after results from 11 out of 20 local government areas where reruns were held had been declared.
But before 11 am, the REC at 9 am came to the state INEC office in Yola, where the results were being collated and announced the All Progressives Congress candidate, Senator Aishatu Dahiru, popularly known as Binani as the winner of the governorship election.
Prior to her declaration, Binani was trailing behind Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party, who had established a margin of lead of 31,249 votes
Before the supplementary poll, Fintiri polled 421, 524 votes ahead of Binani who got 390, 275 votes.
However, Fintiri could not be declared the winner of the March 18 governorship election by the state by the state returning officer, Professor Mohammed Mele, of the Department of English and Linguistics, University of Maiduguri, because the margin of lead did not exceed the number of cancelled votes in 69 polling units.
The results from the 10 councils as collated as of the time of filing this report showed Governor Fintiri adding to his lead of 31,249 with wins in Demsa, Lamurde, Jada, Ganye, Song, Maiha, Hong and Shelleng while Binani won only in Yola North and Yola South.
