…Supplementary elections to be conducted on Saturday in the affected 69 polling units with of a little over 36,000 registered voters, for governorship election, INEC personnel and materials are on ground, security agencies are on alert to ensure peaceful conduct and INEC doesn’t favour any political party – REC Ari
…The iREV review request, if granted, would subject the integrity of the collection and returning officers, who are for the most part, university dons, to test, whether or not they are in a complicated complicity to the conspiracy of compromise against God, against the state, against the electorates…
By Adamu Muhammad Dodo
The electioneering atmosphere of the 2023 in Adamawa state has taken plural dimension with the call for integrity, transparency, free, fair, credible and acceptable governorship election.
There was a governorship election. It was however widely observed to have had credibility-stained, soaked in violence, intimidation, BVAS bypass, results swapping, rigging, vote buying, ballot box snatching and stuffing before returning. The challenges called not only for reflection to redress to be able to legitimate the election in democratic terms, to this effect, there was a call on the INEC to review its iREV, even if not for the entire state, at least for the 16 of the 21 local government areas.
The governorship election was declared inconclusive because the number of invalid votes cast were more than the victory margin, INEC explained. Therefore a rerun would have to be conducted to determine the elected.
Governor Ahmafu Umaru Fintiri who would stop at nothing to succeed himself, not to be defeated by a lady, referred to as amazing amazon, would not want the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) Adamawa State, Barr Hudu Haruna Ari to conduct the supplementary elections the same way he would not want section 65 subsection (1) to be invoked; translating to the review of the results from the iREV Portal by INEC.
Fintiri with supporter groups, whether or not rented, would in their spirit of justice, want the governorship supplementary election to be conducted in just the listed 69 polling units having the total number of 36,000 registered voters. This, they believed, would give them clear victory.
The Most Distinguished Senator Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed, a.k.a Binani would insist on the results review in the 16 of the 21 local governments areas that the records she has gathered would reveal an unacceptable irregularities, the same way she and her teeming generic supporters as usual, would want REC Ari to continue and complete by conducting the supplementary elections in the state. The Binani groups would argue that a review would bring down the scores unduly credited to Fintiri.
In favour of the Fintiri group, supplementary elections would be conducted in the 69 polling units with the total of a little over 36,000 registered voters; this is for governorship election, REC Ari, who against the Fintiri’s, was not removed, would a while ago explained to the press.
And the electorate would ask, with the conclusion of the decision on supplementary elections, what would be the fate of the results review as requested by Binani?
Yunusa Abubakar, a social commentator would point out that it is one thing to have the supplementary elections and it is another to have the results of the elections earlier conducted, alleged to be fraudulent, reviewed. These are two issues to be treated entirely differently.
An election observer with international experience would explain that “…this iREV that has become the issue is an auditor. The iREV is an auditor. If the result that has been produced from the polling unit and taken to the collation centre is not matching with what was brought, the returning officer can refer to the iREV; if there’s a dispute. If there is no dispute, then it is not important to go to the iREV.
“It is like the VAR in football. You have to score a goal. If there is doubt about the goal, you go to a VAR. You don’t subject every goal to VAR just because the opponent does not like the goal that has been scored; and says let us take every goal that has been scored to VAR”.
Therefore the iREV review request, if granted, would subject the integrity of the collection and returning officers, who are for the most part, university dons, to test; whether or not they are in a complicated complicity to the conspiracy of compromise against God, against the state, against the electorates who endured the biting sun in deciding their leadership fate, making good their use of PVCs and against the growing democracy, gradually gaining ground in restoring electorate’s considered confidence in the INEC as a credible state machinery.
It would determine whether or not university dons would have the ground to challenge any kind of examination malpractice and/or whether or not the intellectual class would have the credibility, tenacity, temerity and audacity to challenge leadership excesses in democratic setting.
Most fundamentally, it would legitimise the genuine governor elect between Fintiri and the lone female governorship candidate who would have to cross difficult waters filled with sharks of varried sentiments on her mark, on the march to Dougirei Hill.