The most potent threat to Nigeria’s pseudo-democracy is INEC and its high priests, including Prof Mahmoud Yakubu and Barrister Yunusa-Ari, and not beleaguered Nigerian youths who are only questing for a country that will work for them just as it worked for the generation that is now disparaging them.
By Ikechukwu Amaechi
“Those whom the gods wish to destroy, they first make mad,” says an ancient proverb.
I agree completely. If you are in doubt, reflect on the bizarre actions of the suspended Adamawa State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Barrister Hudu Yunusa-Ari.
It will only take a mad man, destined for destruction by the gods, to pull off a stunt, so foolish and dangerous, as Yunusa-Ari did on Sunday, April 16, when he usurped the powers of the Returning Officer to declare Senator Aishatu ‘Binani’ Dahiru Ahmed, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), winner of the Adamawa governorship election even when the results of the supplementary election held the previous day were yet to be fully collated.
Though his action was promptly declared null and void by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), the ripples of the false call will be enduring.
Result declared after the March 18 governorship election gave an edge to Ahmadu Fintiri, incumbent governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who was leading Binani with over 30,000 votes.
So, last Saturday’s supplementary election which held in 69 polling units in 20 local governments, with less than 40,000 eligible voters, was to decide the actual winner between Binani and Fintiri.
Binani needed almost 100 per cent voter turnout to stand any chance. Not only that, she also needed to win over 90 per cent of the votes cast in the supplementary election to upstage Fintiri.
That was a tall order. As at the time the collation was suspended on Saturday night by the Returning Officer, Prof Mele Lamido, after results from 10 local governments were announced, the hope of a Binani victory had become forlorn because rather than narrowing the gap, Fintiri was widening his lead.
And desperation took hold of her. The Returning Officer had announced that collation of the remaining results would resume at 11am on Sunday. Binani, an INEC contractor whose company, Binani Printing Press Limited, secured a N434 million contract for the printing of result sheets and security documents for the 2023 elections, would have none of that.
Leveraging her reach in INEC and government at the federal level, she pulled the strings. It was, therefore, not a surprise that at about 9am, Yunusa-Ari, surrounded by security chiefs including a Commissioner of Police, sauntered into the collation centre in Yola, armed with a written note to declare Binani governor-elect, a duty not within the remit of his office as REC. No results were collated. In his desperation to pander to the vile whims and caprices of his pay masters, the REC simply made the declaration and walked away, while Binani promptly delivered her “acceptance speech.”
The idea was for the declaration to be made and any aggrieved person will be advised, as usual, to go to court.
But this time, INEC had clearly overreached itself. The proverbial thief had taken too much for the owner not to notice. And Nigerian people, owners of the mandates that are being purloined recklessly, cried out.
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As a REC, Yunusa-Ari knows that only the Returning Officer is empowered to declare the winner of the election. But beyond being a REC, he is also a lawyer, who once served as the secretary of the Nigerian Bar Association (NBA) in his home state – Bauchi.
So, he should have known better. And, indeed, Yunusa-Ari knew that what he did was illegal – tantamount to a civilian coup d’état – but he committed the crime, nevertheless.
It was impunity stretched to its very limits. But it will be naïve for anyone to believe that he acted alone. He was so reckless because the forces behind him had assured that nothing will happen.
And, indeed, nothing will happen despite the braggadocio of INEC. Yunusa-Ari is said to be classmate of a powerful minister in the Buhari cabinet, a member of the cabal.
On Tuesday, INEC chieftains met in Abuja where they decided to write the Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba Alkali, to investigate Yunusa-Ari for possible prosecution and also resolved to write the Secretary to the Government of the Federation (SGF), Boss Mustapha, with a view to acquainting President Muhammadu Buhari with the “unwholesome” activities of the REC and possibly reviewing his appointment.
All these are face-saving gimmicks by INEC.
The Force Public Relations Officer, Muyiwa Adejobi, while addressing newsmen same day in Abuja, said the IGP was yet to get any letter from INEC. Instead, he informed Nigerians that the IGP had recalled the Commissioner of Police on election duty in Adamawa State, Mohammed Barde, with immediate effect.
Another face-saving gambit. CP Barde knew that the REC’s action was illegal. But he was there because he had the back of the police hierarchy.
It will be a pleasant surprise if INEC writes those letters to the IGP and SGF requesting that Yunusa-Ari be brought to justice. It will even be a bigger surprise if INEC writes and President Muhammadu Buhari acts on the letter before leaving office on May 29.
Nothing will happen because Yunusa-Ari is fully protected by the powers-that-be. He was only an errand boy. He didn’t act on his own. As the legendary Chinua Achebe noted: “A boy sent by his father to steal does not go stealthily but breaks the door with his feet.”
The worst that will happen is that the man loses his job as INEC REC after he must have been handsomely rewarded by his benefactors. But that is not a commensurate punishment for the crime.
Imagine what would have happened by now if Yunusa-Ari hails from a certain part of the country and made his false call for any other political party other than the APC. He would have left that venue in handcuffs. But he is a free man despite his heinous crime. He didn’t even honour the summons of his employers, INEC, to Abuja.
On Wednesday, April 19, Dr. Idris Abdulaziz, a Bauchi Islamic cleric, said the suspended REC is a disgrace to the people of Bauchi State.
“I am sad and frustrated for what an indigene of our state, Hudu Yunusa did. He demeaned the good people of Bauchi as well as his own local government, Ningi,” the cleric said in a video that has gone viral on social media.
While well-meaning Nigerians are understandably aghast at what the impudent REC did on Sunday and are calling him out accordingly, it smacks of hypocrisy for some people to insist on cutting the INEC chairman, Prof Mahmoud Yakubu, some slack because both men two of a kind.
In fact, Yakubu’s declaration of the presidential election result at 3am on Wednesday, March 1, despite entreaties from well-meaning citizens to tarry awhile until sundry complaints are looked into was what emboldened Yunusa-Ari to go rogue on April 16 with the result of the Adamawa supplementary governorship election.
I don’t know how many Nigerians noticed that former South African President and Head of the Commonwealth Observer Mission to Nigeria, Mr. Thabo Mbeki, turned up at the National Collation Centre, Abuja on the night of Tuesday, February 28. His mission was to appeal to Yakubu to be fair to all. His advice was spurned by the INEC chairman.
Some have tried differentiating, disingenuously, the actions of Yakubu from Yunusa-Ari on the ground that even if the INEC chairman erred, it was a question of the right man doing the wrong thing unlike Ari’s double jeopardy case – wrong man, wrong action.
No argument could be more absurd. What difference does it really make? A wrong action is still wrong whether it was taken by the right or wrong person.
Truth be told, Prof Yukubu has put Nigeria’s democracy in dire straits and patriotic, well-meaning Nigerians must continue to call him out, ceaselessly. His unacceptable actions must continue to draw critical attention.
Pretending to be offended by Yunusa-Ari’s actions, while glossing over the iniquities of Yakubu, smacks of duplicity, just the same way huffing and puffing over Dr. Datti Baba-Ahmed’s comment that inaugurating a new government on May 29 before the cases challenging the presidential poll are determined would signal the death of democracy in Nigeria while ignoring the actions of those who have made credible elections in Nigeria impossible is hypocritical.
Agreeing with Seun Kuti that Obidients is one of the most repulsive, off-putting concoctions ever encountered in any political arena, as someone did recently, while ignoring the very complaints of Nigerian youths over the conduct of the 2023 elections is hypocritical. It is even more so when the same people who once body-shamed the wife of President Goodluck Jonathan, Patience, calling her a “Madam Shepopotamus” became upset that the Pyrates confraternity mocked their benefactor.
The most potent threat to Nigeria’s pseudo-democracy is INEC and its high priests, including Prof Mahmoud Yakubu and Barrister Hudu Yunusa-Ari, and not beleaguered Nigerian youths who are only questing for a country that will work for them just as it worked for the generation that is now disparaging them.
The real threats to Nigeria’s pseudo-democracy are men like Lai Mohammed, Minister of Information and Culture, who are unashamedly claiming that the 2023 elections are the freest, fairest and most credible ever in Nigeria.
Crass duplicity seems to have become the staple activity of many Nigerians and therein lies the real threat to Nigeria’s pseudo-democracy.