The scene at the collation centre of the Adamawa Governorship Supplementary election penultimate Sunday was such that could be pulled straight out of a Nollywood movie. But it wasn’t a movie or a video game. It was surreal. Two men in tactical gear believed to be officials of the Department of State Services (DSS) and a Commissioner of Police were seen escorting the Resident Electoral Commissioner Hudu Yunusa-Ari to the stage. Time was about 9 am. It was strange because the REC and those who gave him cover had arrived two hours earlier than the 11 am agreed. Ashen-faced, he gave himself away that he was up to something untoward. Quickly, without any niceties, he brought a piece of paper from his pocket. What was written on it nobody knew until be began to read it out. Fear, it seemed, got the better part of him, but he went on. Without giving details of the votes scored by each candidate, he announced Senator Aisha Binani of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as winner of the election. The rest is now history. His action had since been nullified, the process completed and the legitimate winner in the name of the incumbent Governor Ahmadu Fintri of the Peoples Democratic Party declared re-elected. How will history judge Yunusa -Ari? Very harsh. Reason: There is no single, traumatic event or experience in the 2023 general elections that will be compared to the shameful, reckless action of Hudu Ari. From beginning to end, he seemed the most unlikely person to supervise a free, fair, credible and transparent elections in Adamawa. He exhibited obvious partisanship in favour of a particular political party and its candidate. It will be hard, if not impossible, to capture in words the damage this man has inflicted on our electoral process. Truth is, there are many RECs like Hudu Ari who were nothing more than hatchet men and women in the performance of their duties. They harmed the 2023 general elections terribly and made our democracy a laughing stock.
Who knows the whereabouts of this man? That’s the question his employers, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) asked last week. Mr Festus Okoye, National Commissioner for Voter Education and Publicity, told Channels television Sunrise programme last Friday that Yunusa -Ari has gone AWOL. “We don’t know where he is”, Okoye said, gesticulating and his voice rising. In apparent consternation, Okoye explained further. “After this particular incidence, the Commission wrote him and also called him on phone. He never answered or returned any of the calls. We asked him to report to the headquarters of the commission last Sunday…, we didn’t see him. We asked him to report last Monday, we didn’t see him. Up till this moment, he has not reported”. He urged the police to help find his whereabouts. Suspension is not enough. INEC and the presidency must make example of Hudu Ari
Wherever he is now, we believe he has not committed suicide. He should be alive, and not too far away. Perhaps he’s reflecting on the moment of classic drama that he created in Adamawa, and indeed, the entire country. Whatever is his fate , history will not be kind to him. He knowingly made inexcusable error by taking over the duty he knew was not his to make. He allowed his personal bias to muddle his judgment. He was wrong on the merits, and inexplicably wrong about the politics he dabbled into. Anyone who had keenly followed the governorship election in Adamawa on March 18, and the Supplementary poll of April 15, would be left in no doubt that Yunusa -Ari was working for a particular political party. Even when he was reminded by some people to “remember Allah”, he didn’t care. Why? Satan perhaps took over his mind. When the news broke about what he did, it hit everyone like a kick in the stomach. It speaks volumes of the final lunges of a desperate man, working for desperate politicians. His action was equivalent to a civilian coup of one man against democracy. His was a curious phenomenon of a man who held an important and very visible public office yet incapable of knowing the limits of his responsibilities. He proved beyond doubts that he was incapable of touching any kind of emotional cord in the public sphere. He squandered that precious public trust that defines responsibility entrusted to a top electoral officer. He subverted the process without apologies. Maybe, he took office as REC in profound ignorance of what his duties are. He was also ignorant of the possibilities of his likely pitfalls and the consequences that might follow. It’s also possible he was emboldened that, after all, some of his superiors had done something far worse with impunity, and got away with it .
His unconscionable action is only comparable to what Mrs Ayoka Adebayo, did as REC in Ekiti state in 2010 during the re-run governorship election. The big tempest she caused was her disappearance before the process was completed, a shocking development that made the police to declare her “wanted”. But unlike Yunusa -Ari, she surfaced two days later at INEC head office, Abuja with her letter of resignation, claiming that some forces she declined to name, wanted to “hijack” the process. Her letter of resignation read in part: “As a Christian, my conscience cannot allow me to further participate in a process that has been compromised”. That would have been her glorious moment if she had not disappeared in very suspicious circumstances. However, in hindsight, she was far wiser and more circumspect than Yunusa-Ari. This man was deaf to wise counsel. He will have no one to blame but himself. According to Bauchi Islamic scholar, Dr Idris Abdulaziz, Ari “is a disgrace to the people of Bauchi. In a video clip that went viral on the social media, the cleric said, “I am sad and frustrated by what Hudu did. He demeaned our good people of Bauchi state and his local government council of Ningi. The cleric said he advised him when he was nominated as REC by President Buhari to be “honest and fear Allah” in the discharge of his duties in Adamawa. “And when the election was declared inconclusive, I also counselled him through a text message to be non-partisan, and he responded with appreciation”. Why then was the advice of the cleric not heeded by Hudu Ari? Possibly, he saw his position more of a prize to be won than a duty to be done. That many of political appointees to sensitive positions like that RECs or returning officers often fail in the performance of their duties, is largely as a result of their lack of self-awareness. To paraphrase George Stephaanopoulos( a former senior adviser to ex- President Bill Clinton), it’s because such people fail to realise that “judging what you do – how a position will “play” – is an essential political skill. If you don’t predict what will work, you can’t survive in office”. The danger, he says, is “when you stop caring about the difference between being right and being employed, or fail to notice that you don’t know what the difference is anymore”. One of the things that make public office attractive in other democracies we try to copy is not the money, it is the passion and unflappable commitment of those appointed to key political offices put into it. Yunusa -Ari is neither an idiot nor a moron.
The question is: Didn’t he know that the announcement of election result is the duty of the Returning Officer, not that of the REC? The Electoral Act 2022 is explicit on that. Therefore, it will be fair to say that he made himself a pliant REC in the hands of politicians, desperately clawing and struggling to make Sen. Binani as the first Nigeria female elected governor. Ari was working from the answer based on the script written by actors promoting the interest of Binani. The failed plan to foist Binani on Adamawa people was designed and well choreographed as a parting gift to President Buhari. It was a plot that had been in the works for years after the valiant but failed attempt by Aisha Jummai Alhassan, popularly called “Mama Taraba”, for the governorship seat of Taraba state in 2015. Her victory was nullified by the Appeal Court and the Supreme Court sealed her ambition. She died in May 2021. That plan to break through the glass ceiling has again been derailed in Adamawa. Going forward, there’s need to rethink the selection process of Resident Electoral Commissioners. The process must go beyond the approval of the President.