Rotimi Fasan
The Resident Electoral Commissioner, REC, of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, in Adamawa State, Mr. Hudu Ari, seems to have far less sense than one would expect of a man of his status and age. After his misadventure of usurping the constitutional duty of the Returning Officer, Mele Lamido, on April 17, during collation of results of the supplementary election that held in the state, Mr. Ari has gone ahead to add salt to his injurious action by going AWOL on both his employers and the rest of Nigerians.
Summoned to INEC’s headquarters in Abuja after his disgraceful conduct, Hudu Ari has neither reported in Abuja nor made himself available to state authorities and security agencies that are on his trail. Perhaps, by the time you’re reading this, he would have shown up, arrested by or surrendered to the police. But as at Monday, April 23, Mr. Ari’s whereabouts is anybody’s guess.
The part that is so far clear about this saga is that Ari made it out of the venue of his infamous declaration of the All Progressives Congress, APC, candidate in the supplementary election, Aisha Dahiru aka Benani, as winner of the election. Flanked in the middle by two senior security agents, one of them apparently the now-suspended Commissioner of Police in Adamawa, Ari made his way out of the collation centre amid tugs and shoves by angry supporters of the current governor and eventual winner of the election, Ahmadu Fintiri. He, allegedly, left Adamawa on a flight which many must have assumed was to convey him to Abuja where he had been summoned by his bosses. Ari’s act of electoral brigandage was at once brazen and foolhardy. It had all the elements of thuggery, aided and abetted in high places. But for the fact that the Ramadan fast was still on at the time he chose to trample on the law, one would be pardoned to think he was under the influence of some illegal substance. Yet some people could swear that the man was not fasting as his jaws and closed lips appeared to be moving in a way that suggested he was chewing something. His action had all the imprint of official lawlessness except for that modicum of wisdom that should give it a veneer of legality.
Or how else is anyone to explain the misconduct of a Resident Electoral Commissioner, Hudu Ari, in this case who, against the law, not only took over the assigned duty of the Returning Officer but also went ahead to announce the winner of an election at a time most of the results were yet to be received? This was grossly against the law and should at the very least fetch Ari 36 months behind the bar if found guilty. But while he was audacious in the execution of his illegal assignment, Ari has not shown any readiness to do the time in jail, hence his sudden disappearance.
But for how long and where can he hide? Did his courage suddenly fail him on seeing the reactions of Nigerians and the failure of those he expected to back him to rise to the occasion? What was this man thinking of and who did he take himself for when he returned to the INEC collation centre to perform the duty of another officer? Did his position as the most senior INEC staff in the state give him the mistaken notion that he could do as he pleased and install a candidate of his choice as winner of the election without anyone challenging him? How foolish can an adult, almost elderly by his looks, be? Let’s not mind the fact that his action was said to have been motivated by money, should a man in such position as he behave so thoughtlessly?
His behaviour added oil to the already raging fire of conspiracy theorists that had alleged all along that INEC was a major player in what critics of the election claimed was the flawed outcome of the elections. It was as if this man, Hudu Ari, set out to embarrass INEC and spit on the victory of winners in the 2023 election in the crudest way possible. Was it any surprise, therefore, that many opposition elements were quick to draw parallels between Ari’s action and what they alleged happened in both the presidential and gubernatorial elections of February 28 and March 18? Criminal and patently illegal as it was, Ari’s action could have been that of a lone wolf figure with an outsized sense of importance. Which is not to say that INEC staff are all above board. Far from it, it would be strange indeed to expect staff of the electoral body to behave in a manner totally out of character for many of us.
Many of the identified infractions associated with the 2023 elections could not have been committed without the active support of INEC staff, many of whom were recruited on an ad-hoc basis and co-opted into the Commission’s operations by family members, friends and other associates. All of this should not by itself make the staff complicit except that many, if not most of them, are as Nigerian as the rest of us their critics who see such opportunities to serve as openings for self-enrichment. It should be a no brainer then to believe that money or material reward played a huge part in what transpired in the Adamawa State supplementary election. Nor can Hudu Ari be excused should he claim that his desire to see Adamawa produce its first female governor, which would have been the first in the country after the failed attempt of Benani’s namesake, Aisha Alhassan aka Mama Taraba, was the motivation for his action. We would all like to see a woman emerge in her own right to govern a state in Nigeria, more so if this was from the conservative North. What happy irony would that have been? But we had better not have a female governor than to produce one under the corrupt, odious circumstances that Ari had made inevitable.
Right from the gubernatorial election of March 18, when Binani showed such great promise, many had nervously awaited her emergence even as she trailed the incumbent governor by some 31 thousand votes. The supplementary election was seen as another opportunity for her to complete the unfinished business she earlier started. She is obviously a remarkable and very able woman. Yet, her credentials would have been sullied under the condition Hudu Ari was going to impose her on the people of Adamawa. Nigeria must widen the space for women participation in politics but the desperate turn that the emergence of Aisha Dahiru took would have tainted our political history had it been allowed to stand.
