Impunity is the exercise of power without accountability. It is the commission of crimes without punishment. The most familiar expression associated with impunity has always been, “they break laws with impunity”. Rule of law is always the first casualty in a country that thrives on impunity. Officials do whatever they like because they understand there will be no consequences for their actions. This impunity found its perfect definition in the 2023 general elections. The first election of 2023 was the presidential election held on February 25, 2023, organised by INEC in which Prof Yakubu Mahmood was the National Chairman of INEC and the Chief Returning Officer of the presidential election. The last election was the supplementary gubernatorial election in Adamawa State held on April 16, 2023, where Hudu Yunusa-Ari was the REC of Adamawa State, while Prof Mele Muhammed was the Returning Officer of that election. Mahmood is the only official of INEC who doubles as both the administrative head of the organisation and the returning officer who declares the winner of the presidential election. These positions have been separated at the lower tiers of INEC administrative ladder. At the state and local government levels, it’s the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) and the Electoral Officer (EO) that are the administrative heads of INEC while the Returning Officers who declare winners of gubernatorial and legislative elections are appointed separately by the Commission.
The Adamawa gubernatorial election held on March 18, 2023 ended with the incumbent Governor Ahmadu Fintiri leading with about 31,000 votes. In the remaining 69 polling units where elections were cancelled, only about 37,000 voters were eligible to vote with their pvc’s. On April 16, the supplementary election held in broad daylight in 69 polling units in about 20 local government areas. After the election, collation commenced and results were turned in from 10 out of 20 LGA’s. The collation and announcement were adjourned to commence the next day at 11am prompt, after confirming that Fintiri was leading in the 10 already announced polling units. At this time, Aishatu’s camp knew she had lost. They had to come up with an elaborate premeditated plan to declare her the winner at all cost and despatch the other party to go to court. By the next day, at 9 am, Hudu Ari, Adamawa REC, simply walked in before the 11 am stipulated time, in full complement of the security details, with a written statement on a sheet of paper, containing no final results of all the contestants, while the collation of the results was still being awaited in the remaining 10 LGA’s of Adamawa State, and contrary to all the pleas from his people to him to respect the law and fear God, even in Ramadan, he went ahead to criminally declare Binani as the winner of Adamawa gubernatorial election.
Amid the furore that the brazen act of impunity generated, Binani read a victory speech covered by NTA alone. Even INEC was embarrassed and suspended the announcement. Binani was to complete the circus show when she went to a Federal High Court the next day to compel INEC to accept her illegal declaration as completed. It took a thoughtful Justice Inyang Ekwo, who didn’t want to be part of the impunity, to stop the ensuing daylight madness, by wisely refusing to grant an interim order intended to perpetuate the criminality that has become the Adamawa supplementary election result declaration. INEC resumed the next day to complete the collation of the results in the remaining 10 LGA’s leading to the eventual declaration of Fintiri as winner.
Let us be clear, what happened on that day in Adamawa is criminal. Section 120(4) of the Electoral Act states that “any person who announces or publishes an election result knowing same to be false or which is at variance with the signed certificate of return commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of 36 months”. Section 121(4) states that “Any person who commits the offence of bribery is liable on conviction to a maximum fine of N500,000 or imprisonment for a term of 12 months or both”. Section 121(5) concludes by saying “Any person who conspires, aids or abets any other person to commit any of the offences under this Part of this Act commits the same offence and is liable to the same punishment”. The Adamawa REC would still have gone to jail for declaring false results, even if he were to be the Returning Officer (See Section 64(9), much worse for him that he was not the Returning Officer, foreclosing the possibility that he unintentionally did it. All the security operatives that aided and abetted him should be on their way to jail. There is a believable allegation that he and his allies were induced with N2b to truncate the Adamawa gubernatorial election. It is believable because only a mad man can display such level of impunity without inducement. Security officers should investigate this and bring the culprits to book.
When Fintiri was declared the winner, in his subsequent interviews, he said, “I did not contest against Binani, I contested against INEC. The whole presiding officers that were conducting the election, all of them were APC members … I ran against the enemies of democracy in Abuja”. He claimed that powerful individuals in Abuja were bent on imposing a new governor on the people of the state. According to Atedo Peterside, “The Adamawa elections were particularly embarrassing but not different from other elections. INEC at the state level has taken a cue from those at the centre. We must hold people accountable for falsifying results not just in Adamawa but across the nation”. This simply means that Yunusa, the Adamawa REC, took a cue from Yakubu, the national chairman, in their impunity in handling elections nationwide. Recall that Chibuike Amechi, immediate past Minister of Transportation, under the APC ruling party, revealed that Mahmood was appointed by the Tinubu camp in APC. This confirms the allegation of Yakubu’s partisanship and preference for the victory of the Tinubu camp of APC in all elections. Yakubu made promises that BVAS and electronically uploaded and transmitted results were mandatory for 2023 elections. He failed. He wasted our time and about N400b and still declared his preferred candidate at the dead of the night without genuine results, unverified and unconfirmed by BVAS, that he could not produce on demand, even with a court order, until BVAS was reconfigured, only to present at the election tribunal that BVAS and electronically transmitted results are no longer mandatory.
The cure to impunity is holding everyone accountable for his actions no matter who they are. With regards to INEC, the qualification criteria should be strictly adhered to. The Constitution permits the appointment of only non-partisan persons of unquestionable integrity. Yakubu and Yunusa have been exposed by the presidential and Adamawa gubernatorial supplementary election as partisan men of questionable integrity, and they should step down immediately or be sacked and prosecuted. The method of appointing INEC Officials should be amended to include non-partisan entities as the appointors of the INEC Officials.
The judiciary is the arm of government bestowed with the power to hold erring officers accountable for their actions. They have the duty to dispense justice according to law in the various election cases scattered all over Nigeria. No democracy can survive without justice and no country can have peace without justice. The correct winner of the 2023 presidential election must be determined by the courts by dispassionately looking at the petitions and delivering judgement based on the facts and correct application of the law. The corrupt INEC officials must be tried and sent to jail by the judiciary as deterrent to others. The last hope for the survival of the fourth republic is now in the hands of the judiciary.
Searchlight should be beamed on the legal profession. Lawyers should be ministers in the temple of justice and must not be seen as accomplices in the act of destroying the rule of law. In US, UK and advanced countries, any lawyer that brings fraudulent applications on behalf of his client to deceive the court or lie to the public with concocted facts is punished severely and debarred. Michael Cohen and Rudy Giuliani, powerful lawyers in America, who helped propagate some of Donald Trump’s lies about the 2020 presidential election have been debarred as lawyers and Cohen sent to jail for doing an illegal act on behalf of Trump. It’s surprising that Hudu is a Lawyer and should be investigated by the appropriate Legal Profession Disciplinary Committee for appropriate punishment to deter other lawyers in future.
Nigerians must arrest and handover to the police any erring public officer committing crime in front of them. This is part of the eternal vigilance that is the price to pay for democracy. The era of allowing a public officer to do his duty with impunity and shamelessly tell the people to go to court is gone. The party agents, observers and the NBA in the collation centre where Yakubu Mahmood was declaring fake results, without confirming the genuineness of the results with the electronically uploaded and transmitted results in the BVAS as required by law, should have arrested Mahmood and handed him over to the police for investigation and trial not allow him to finish his criminal act and get away with it. Section 64(9) of the Electoral Act declared Mahmood’s conduct criminal and made him liable to jail for 3 years. Section 39 of the Police Act is very clear that “A private person may arrest a suspect in Nigeria who in his presence commits an offence, or whom he reasonably suspects of having committed an offence for which the police is entitled to arrest without a warrant”. It was the determination of Adamawa people to arrest Yunusa on the spot that thwarted his criminal intention to rig the election. What’s good for Yunusa is good for Yakubu.