Hudu explained his role in the announced in a letter he sent to the Nigeria Police.

Fleeing Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Yunusa Ari has broken his silence while in hiding.

According to Peoples Gazette, Hudu explained why he controversially announced the Adamawa State governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Aisha Dahiru Binani, as the winner of the election.

He spoke in a letter he sent to the Nigeria Police and also copied the director-general of the State Security Service (SSS), National Security Adviser (NSA), and the chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

In the letter, the REC, who is in hiding, accused two national commissioners, Baba Bila and Abdullahi Zuru, who had been tasked to assist him with the supplementary election on March 15, of secretly working with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) to rig the results.

Yunusa Ari, a legal practitioner, said he belatedly uncovered that the INEC officials held secret meetings with Governor Ahmadu Fintiri at the Government House Yola at about 8:31 p.m. on Friday, the night before the election, where they perfected plans to change the collation officers and alter the election results.

Aru said that on election day, the state’s commissioner of police furnished him with findings of a plot that exposed how some politicians had hired Boko Haram terrorists to snatch ballot boxes and disrupt the polls.

According to him, in an update the same day, the police said the security threats were still high as the insurgents had planned to attack various local governments to disrupt collation.

He said he was then advised to move the collation from local government areas to the state’s INEC headquarters, he said in the four-page letter.

The electoral commissioner said he quickly complied and directed that all ad-hoc staff conduct collation at the commission’s headquarters office in Dougirei, Yola.

He said he did not realize that the two assisting national commissioners had plans of their own as they “quietly and secretly gave out conflicting counter directives” to the electoral officers, adding that the counter-directives also said that collation should be done in the local government areas with new local government collation officers that he was “not aware of.”

“This is without my knowledge or authorisation as the Resident Electoral Commissioner as recognized by laws establishing INEC and Electoral Act,” Yunusa Ari said.

some PDP supporters attacked one of the National Commissioners, Prof. Abdullahi Zuru, and the Returning Officer, Prof. Muhammed Mele, for failing to deliver Mr. Ahmadu Umaru Fintiri in the election after collecting money from him,” Ari said.

He also claimed that one SSS operative who knew about the bribes given to the national commissioners was also overpowered, disarmed, and whisked to the Government House, where he was assaulted by police and “thugs loyal to PDP.”

Ari defended his decision to declare Binani winner of the polls to be well within his rights as contained in the Electoral Act 2022.

“I want to categorically say that my action is within the responsibility vested on me and within the ambit law, particularly of the Electoral Act 2022 as amended,” he said.

Reacting in a statement, INEC spokesman, Festus Okoye, said Yunusa Ari should turn himself in to the commission or police, who already have a file outlining the offenses he committed in the line of duty.

Okoye said: “He should report and answer to the electoral infractions and make his allegations, and it should form part of police investigation.

“The commission is not interested in his ‘fictional letters from hiding.’

“If he has a narration, he should make them to the police. Alternatively, he can report to the commission, and the commission will take him to the police.”

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