PDP, APC trade accusations

As INEC conducts guber, senatorial polls in Adamawa, Kebbi, Sokoto, others

By Lateef Ibrahim & Ahmed Idris

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, is on the move again. After the presidential and National Assembly elections of February 25 and the Governorship and States Houses of Assembly elections of March 18, this year respectively, the Professor Mahmood Yakubu -led Commission will again file out today to conduct supplementary elections in some parts of the country.
The supplementary elections are made up of governorship polls in Adamawa and Kebbi States, 5 Senatorial Districts, 31 Federal and 58 State Assembly constituencies.
This supplementary elections were slated, weeks back, by the electoral body as announced in a statement by one of its National Commissioners and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee, VEC, Barrister Festus Okoye in Abuja.
The Commission had explained that owing to the competitive nature of the elections, especially for legislative seats, supplementary elections will be held in just a few polling units in some constituencies.
The Prof Mahmood Yakubu-led INEC, therfore, appealed to all political parties, candidates and stakeholders to note the date and locations of the supplementary elections.
The earlier accreditation for polling and collation agents, observers and the media, the commission said, still subsists for the supplementary elections.
It urged political parties, candidates and their supporters to see the exercise as an election and not war, stressing that they should avoid incendiary statements and negative mobilisation so that the elections can be conducted and concluded as scheduled.
Ever since the announcement of the supplementary polls, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, the leading opposition party in the country, has never kept quiet in its demand that the
Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, of INEC in Adamawa State Mallam Hudu Yunusa Ari should recuse himself from superintending and/or conducting the re-run governorship election in the State, saying that it does not have faith in him (the REC) any more.
Should the REC refuse to recuse himself, the PDP demanded that the INEC Chairman Prof, Mahmood Yakubu should immediately remove him.
The party pointed out that the call became necessary in view of grave allegations and evidence of the audio tape already in the public domain against him.
The main opposition party pointed had out that the continued stay in office of Mallam Ari as Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner amounts to pushing the people to the wall and daring them to do their worst.
The PDP added that it is provocative and unacceptable that INEC retained Mallam Ari to conduct the April 15, 2023 governorship re-run election despite being reportedly caught on tape directing the Electoral Officer of Fufore Local Government Area of Adamawa State in Hausa Language to alter election results in favour of the defeated governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Senator Aisha Binani.
According to the PDP, “The continued stay in office of Mallam Yunusa Ari in the face of widespread outcry by the people of Adamawa State amounts to pushing the people to the wall and daring them to do their worst.
“The PDP dismisses the lame denial of the leaked audio tape by the exposed INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner. “The basis for recusal by an umpire is the accusation of likelihood of bias.
“In this case, apart from the accusation, there is audio evidence against Mallam Yunusa Ari and he cannot by any standard superintend over the Adamawa Governorship re-run election without widespread suspicion of his actions.
“The situation around the embattled INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner is worsened by allegations of similar instructions to Electoral Officers in some other Local Government Areas of the State to manipulate the results of the election.
“In view of these grave allegations and evidence of the audio tape already in the public domain, Mallam Yunusa Ari should immediately recuse himself from superintending and/or conducting the re-run governorship election in Adamawa State on April 15, 2023”, the party insisted.
The PDP invited Nigerians to note that INEC relieved the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Sokoto State, Dr. Nura Ali of his position over allegations of irregularities in the conduct of the just concluded elections in that State.
It added, “There is therefore no justification for the continuing stay of Mallam Yunusa Ari as Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State in the face of these grave allegations except for sinister reasons.
“Nigerians can recall that the Adamawa State INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner was also accused of being at the center of the failed attempt to move the collation of results of the Adamawa State Governorship election from Yola to Abuja to enable the INEC Returning Officer declare the defeated APC candidate as the winner; a move that was firmly resisted by the people of Adamawa State.
“The PDP cautions that the people of Adamawa State will never surrender their mandate to these reprehensible plots to manipulate the outcome of the re-run governorship election in the State.
“The continued stay of Mallam Yunusa Ari as INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State is heightening tension and is capable of disrupting the peace for which the State is known.
“Mallam Yunusa Ari has clearly become partisan; he has descended into the arena by allegedly taking sides with the APC, a political party in the contest to the extent of directing Electoral Officers to manipulate election results in favour of the APC candidate.
“The PDP therefore demands that the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu immediately remove Mallam Yunusa Ari as Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State”, Ologunagba said.
Similarly, the Sokoto State Governor and candidate of the People’s Democratic Party (PDP) for the Sokoto South Senatorial district, Hon. Aminu Waziri Tambuwal, has petitioned the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC),
Prof Mahmood Yakubu, over the listing of polling units where elections had been concluded and results declared for the April 15, 2023 supplementary elections.
The petition by Tambuwal to the INEC Chairman was written by his lawyer, Mr. S.I. Ameh SAN.
Tambuwal expressed the firm hope that
what he called, “these obvious irregularities” will be cured, especially having brought them to the notice of the INEC Chairman.

The Governor, in his petition, said:
“Consequent upon the Commission’s publication of the areas slated for the April 15th 2023 rerun across the country, our Client’s attention was drawn to certain Polling Units under his Senatorial District, where elections were successfully conducted, concluded and results validly announced and collated in Forms EC8B (1).
“To our Client’s surprise and chagrin, some of the Polling Units in question, where Elections were duly concluded, have now suddenly resurfaced as part of the places listed for the said proposed Rerun.
“We have, for the purposes of verification, your urgent attention and intervention, compiled the list of the affected Polling Units and urge you to delist the said Polling Units from the list of Polling Units where a rerun Election will take place on the 15th day of April, 2023 in view of the fact that elections cannot be conducted twice in a Polling Unit, which had no issues.
“Attached are the various Forms EC8B (1) properly highlighted, and an itemized summary of the affected Polling Units, for ease of reference.
“We do hope that these obvious irregularities are cured, especially having brought them to your notice and attention promptly and within time.
The Governor, in his petition, expressed the strong belief that the listing of the concluded polling units is the latest in the well-laid and orchestrated plan against him.
He alleged that the February 25, 2023 Sokoto South Senatorial Election was the target of internal and external forces bent on extracting a pound of flesh from Governor Tambuwal.
According to the petition, “Tambuwal was leading comfortably and was awaiting his formal declaration. All of a sudden, violence erupted in some polling units, giving the compromised Resident Electoral Commissioner and field officers the excuse to declare the election inconclusive.
“In their haste and determination to complete their evil design, they still included polling units where elections have been concluded in the list for supplementary elections.
“It is expected that INEC will take a critical look at the list for supplementary elections in Sokoto South Senatorial Zone, clean it up and without delay release the authentic list.
“INEC is also expected to identify their officers involved in this electoral fraud. “Meting out exemplary punishment to them will help break the cycle of impunity and restore the confidence of the people in the electoral process,”, he concluded.
The presidential candidate of the PDP in the February 25, 2023 election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar has, however, implored the electorate in all the places where supplementary elections will take place on Saturday to come out in large numbers to cast their ballot for the PDP.
Atiku, in a press release signed on Thursday by his Media Adviser, Paul Ibe, specifically called on the voters at polling units where elections will take place in Adamawa and Kebbi on Saturday, 15 April, to ensure that the process of electing PDP state governors and federal and state lawmakers in those states and others are completed in a peaceful manner.
According to him, “In both Adamawa and Kebbi States, where supplementary elections shall be held on Saturday, I wish to make a special appeal to the voters in the respective polling units where elections shall be taking place to make sure that the PDP enjoys overwhelming support through their votes.
“It is an established fact that the APC ((All Progressives Congress) has failed the people of this country and, especially, in Kebbi State, the more reason it is incumbent on the electorate to vote them out and return the PDP”, Atiku was quoted to have said in Yola where he will be casting his vote Saturday”.
In Kebbi State where the electorate will also be voting in an inconclusive governorship election, the ruling APC in the state is blowing hot. The party has asked INEC to remove the state collation Officer before today’s exercise.
The APC Chairman Kebbi State Publicity Committee for the state Governorship Campaign, Alhajl Kabiru Sani Giant, has called on the National Chairman of Independent National Electoral Commission [INEC], Professor Yakubu Mamudu, to urgently removed the Kebbi State election Collation Officer, Professor Yusuf Saidu, for allegedly being bias and sentimental in the just concluded Governorship and State Assembly Elections.
He added that the removal of the Collation officer will bring sanity to the re-run of the said elections adding that the APC in the State is not conformable with the Collation Officer due to is alleged alliance with the other political parties.
“ I urged INEC’s Returning Officer Professor Yusuf Sa’idu who on Monday declared the results to be inconclusive due to what he said was cancellation of polling unit results in 20 of the state’s 21 local governments should be changed for the next re-runing elections” he said.
Nigerians in general and voters in the affected areas, where supplementary elections will be held today, in particular, are however hoping that the Professor Mahmood Yakubu -led Commission would conduct the supplementary polls in a manner that will not only be free, fair, transparent and credible, but will also be generally acceptable by all.
According to observers, the supplementary elections, if well conducted and managed, are capable of helping to shore up the image of INEC and reduce litigations that have trailed the outcomes of the February 25, and March 18 presidential and governorship elections respectively.
The ball, certainly, is right now in the court of the Commission.