INEC’s CREDIBILITY CRISIS: WHY ADAMAWA’s CASE IS NOT WORSE THAN ENUGU’s
By Jude Aneke
Nigerians who attended church services on Sunday, 16th April, 2023 returned home to hear yet another shocker from the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC. The Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Alhaji Hudu Yunusa Ari, had declared Senator Aisha Binani the gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC, the winner of the protracted election at a time collation of supplementary election results held a day earlier, was still ongoing.
The action of the Adamawa ‘REC’ has ever since attracted national outrage and condemnation with many commentators calling for his immediate arrest and prosecution. It would be recalled that the Adamawa PDP had on several occasions accused the REC of bias and partiality in handling the governorship election which had lingered boringly since March 18th 2023 when the election held in most parts of the country.
Unable to complete the process on time to enable the Returning officer make a return, the INEC rescheduled a supplementary election for Adamawa’s remaining ten local government areas on Saturday, 15th April 2023. Going into the supplementary election, the PDP candidate and governor of Adamawa State Alhaji Umaru Fintiri, was leading the APC candidate with over 30,000 votes. On the day scheduled for supplementary elections, (15th April, 2023) results of ten more local government areas collated, showed that the governor led in seven local government areas with additional 4,000 votes.
Still unable to conclude on that day, collation was scheduled to resume on Sunday 16th April 2023 by 11am. To everyone’s surprise, the Resident Electoral Commissioner stormed the collation centre at about 9 am( two hours before the appointed time) in the morning, in company of the Commissioner of police and other security agents and declared Senator Binani winner of the election. With what results and figures? Was the REC the returning officer authorized to make such a declaration? INEC will never cease to embarrass the country.
Grapevine reports that a certain professor at the university of Maiduguri who is the returning officer for the election, refused to make an illegal declaration when election had yet to be concluded, hence the compromised REC took it upon himself.
The Adamawa incident has further confirmed the enormous rot in INEC which hired a character like Yunusa Ari in the first place. Many analysts are of the opinion that the ‘REC’ did not act alone and could have derived his authority from very powerful sources including the INEC headquarters. Such sources might have retreated temporarily after the action of the REC received widespread condemnation.
Senator Aisha Binani herself who after the illegal declaration, gave an acceptance speech, could also not have done so without any prompting from high places. Despite the fuss and condemnation the matter has generated, it is reported that the camp of Aisha Binani is still bustling with celebrations while her supporters boast that she would soon collect her certificate of return. That is still possible despite INEC’s pretentious announcement nullifying her declaration as winner of the election. The senator as part of the game plan, could still rush to court to compel INEC to recognize the declaration while Governor Fintiri as usual, would be required to ‘go to court’ to challenge the declaration. It is only when the Court refuses to do so, that sanity will return. That’s Nigeria for you.
The incorruptible Buhari and his sanctimonious INEC have finally bared their fangs to let Nigerians see them for who they truly are.
Despite what happened, many Nigerians especially Enugu residents say they could hardly be shocked by whatever INEC does after what happened in Enugu. According to them what happened in Adamawa is no different from the Enugu calamitous experience. In both cases, declaration of results were not due as there were many polling units where election had yet to be held.
The Enugu REC knew that aside from the Nkanu East’s fake results abracadabra, elections did not hold in many polling units in Igbo Eze North, Igbo Eze South, Igbo Etiti, Nsukka and Oji River Local Government Areas with registered voters numbering over 20,000.
Despite this fact, INEC in Enugu went ahead to make a declaration and return based on Nkanu East’s manufactured results even though it knew that the 3000 votes difference between the scores of the purported winner and runner up, after all the manipulations, was far below the number of registered voters in the areas election was yet to hold.
As though the hypocrisy is not hug enough, INEC went back to conduct supplementary elections for House of Assembly in Oji River Local Government Area without that of the governor, even when the cancellation affected both elections. Unfortunately for the conspirators, the PDP which the supplementary election was designed to aid, lost again.
It would be recalled that INEC earlier scheduled supplementary elections for Igbo Eze South and Udenu local government areas but later put them off when the two PDP candidates, contesting Labour Party’s victory, after realizing that a fresh election could affect the governorship election result already announced, quickly accepted defeat.
The questions are; why did INEC deploy for only House of Assembly rerun elections in Enugu State when the governorship election was also affected? If elections didn’t hold or were cancelled in certain places, should a rerun not be for both the governorship and House of Assembly which took place simultaneously on 18th March 2023? Why the rush to declare someone a winner when the process had yet to be concluded? These weighty issues will be adequately canvassed in the Labour Party’s petition at the tribunal.
In the light of the above, many observers are of the opinion that the only difference between what happened in Adamawa and Enugu is that the results of the former was announced by someone not entitled to do so. Otherwise, It is like six and half a dozen.
