The governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the last gubernatorial election in Adamawa State, Senator Aishat Dahiru Binani, yesterday, accused the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of frustrating her petition against the declaration of Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as winner of the poll. Binani alleged that the electoral body, in utter display of bias and disregard to order of court, was presently making desperate efforts to arrest and detain the suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa Ari, as a ploy to prevent him from testifying for her at the ongoing Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.
Addressing a Press Conference in Abuja, on behalf of Binani, the APC Returning Officer at the March 18 Governorship election and the re-run of April 15, Mustapha Umar Madawaki, appealed to well-meaning Nigerians to call INEC to order to allow the APC candidate reclaim her mandate obtained from the poll. Madawaki, who alleged that the electoral body was in a conspiracy with the Adamawa State Government and anti-Binani forces to thwart the diligent prosecution of the petition, claimed that INEC wanted the suspended REC apprehended and kept out of circulation to make him unavailable as witness for the governorship candidate.
Tracing the genesis of the election crisis and the resulting petition, the APC Returning Officer alleged that at the point of collation of results, INEC suddenly allowed its trained ad-hoc workers changed and unlawfully and mysteriously substituted by another group of untrained staff that were not meant for collation. The result of the unlawful change of ad-hoc workers, he said, was the production of different election results from the one submitted by the authentic workers.
Alleging that the unlawful ad-hoc staff list was sub- mitted by an agent of the state government, the Returning Officer explained that the fact that INEC accepted the list and used it was a clear evidence and proof that it was biased in favour of the PDP. "To my mind, that is a major reason why INEC is working overtime, trying to prevent the former Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner, Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari, from testifying before the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal.
"They are afraid of the revelations he would make. Their desperation is so brazen that Justice A.O Manji was forced to openly question INEC's lawyer on why they are in a hurry to get Hudu Yunusa Ari arrested while there is a clear court order against that. "To my mind also, that is the same reason that the Force Headquarters under the former Inspector General of Police (IGP) shot itself in the foot when it doctored the earlier investigative report into the Adamawa elections that found no indictable offence against Barrister Hudu Yunusa Ari to another one they could use to quickly arrest and incarcerate him.
He said: "We have both the original investigative report and the doctored one at our disposal. We are aware that these are serious charges and have therefore, refrained from elaborating further on some of the matters because they are before the Adamawa State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal" Madawaki, who described Senator Binani as a victim of gender discrimination in her governorship ambition, said that Embassies and Diplomatic Missions would be carried along in the battle to regain the alleged stolen mandate of the governorship candidate.
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