Adamawa Political Debacle: Controversial Hudu Ari Writes IGP, Says He Acted In Good Faith
Hudu Yunusa Ari, who was last month suspended as Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in charge of Adamawa state, has finally found his voice.
Hudu Ari, a barrister- at- law, who had gotten a great deal of public attention since April 16 2023 has had his whereabouts suddenly becoming unknown having gone into hiding.
Until he got in the soup, Ari was the Resident Electoral Commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Adamawa state.
Hudu Yunusa Ari had declared the APC gubernatorial candidate, Senator Aisha Dahiru, aka Binani winner of the 2023 Adamawa state Governorship election under controversial circumstances on April 16 2023 .
He had announced Aishatu Ahmed Binani as winner of the election at about 9.30 am less than two hours before the scheduled resumption of collation.
His action was however declared null and void while INEC had later concluded the collation of results, declared Governor Fintiri winner of the Adamawa state 2023 Governorship Election and presented him the certificate of return (CoR).
Apart from getting suspended as REC, the Inspector General of Police, Baba Usman Alkali was also directed to ensure his arrest and prosecution.
Team@orientactualmags.com learned Ari has found his voice, the suspended INEC official in a letter addressed to the Inspector General of Police has asserted that he acted in good faith.
In the letter in question which had the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the Director-General of the Department of State Services (DSS) cc’d , Ari noted that he acted within the ambit of the law to avert impending danger the delay in announcing the election results may have caused, especially because he had realized 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 cited attempts to replace him as 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 dangers he was exposed to.
‘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 APC.
I had the breakdown of the valid votes gotten 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 recognized collation officers and my humble self as the Adamawa State Chief Collation Officer and Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC).
Prior to the declaration, there was an intelligence report made available to me that the two national commissioners were at the Government House, Yola at 8:31pm on April 15, 2023 and held a meeting with Governor Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri’ he said.
Ari added that immediately after declaring Binani as governor-elect, some PDP supporters attacked two INEC commissioners and the Returning Officer for allegedly failing to have Governor Fintiri declared as winner, adding that ‘it was alleged that the people beaten in the purported video wanted to subvert the supplementary election in Adamawa State and undermine the will of the people as expressed through the ballot’- Team@orientactualmags.com
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