A civil society group, under the auspices of Partners for Electoral Reform has asked the police to immediately declare Hudu Yunusa Ari, the suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Adamawa State wanted, especially if he is not ready to voluntarily submit himself to police investigation as directed by President Muhammadu Buhari.

Chairman of the group, Ezenwa Nwagwu made the call in a statement made available to journalists in Abuja on Friday, following reports that the suspended REC had written to the Police from his hide out.

He said “The suspended and now fugitive Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) of Adamawa State, Hudu Yunusa Ari, has written to the Police from his hide out. He has been summoned to the Commission’s headquarters in Abuja since Monday 17th April 2023.

“Ten days and counting, he failed to show up. Meanwhile, the Police is said to have commenced investigation into the travesty of his announcement of illegal result for the Adamawa Governorship election. Now he has written a four-page letter to IGP dated 20th April 2023 submitting an apparently unsolicited report to the police by illegally using the Commission’s letterhead after he was directed to stay away from office by INEC and his immediate suspension by the President.

“He is doing himself a disservice by going into hiding. Implied by his action is an admission of guilt which is apparent from his sudden disappearance. He should be courageous to answer the IGP’s invitation and make an official statement rather than resort to letter writing.”

Nwagwu said the 4-page letter which the suspended REC or his accomplices leaked to the media shows the REC’s confused state of mind.

He said, “The title of it seems to be a report of the supplementary governorship election held on 15th April 2023. From its opening paragraph, the letter is intended for INEC but ironically addressed to the IGP and went straight into attack on both the motive and credibility of the two National Commissioners deployed to oversee the conduct of the supplementary election and the conclusion of the 2023 Governorship election in Adamawa State.

“The two Commissioners should be and ought to be capable of defending themselves from the allegations leveled against them. Any comment here will be prejudicial to the ongoing police investigation and possible prosecution of the REC.

“As a keen election observer, the letter shows profound lack of understanding of basic provisions of the electoral legal framework and his responsibilities as a REC. This is a sad commentary on the man who is said to be a lawyer, a Member of the National Institute (mni) and a retired State Permanent Secretary.”

Mr Nwangwu noted that first, the Commission can send National Commissioners to supervise elections anywhere it considers it necessary and RECs work under their supervision and guidance, adding that Section 7 of the Electoral Act empowers the Commission to do so.

He gave instances such as Kebbi, Zamfara, Imo, Rivers, Ekiti and Ogun States with National Commissioners were deployed to without any incidence, noting that the problem in Adamawa was the REC as he amply demonstrated by his conduct.

He said further, “Secondly, only the Commission can appoint collation and returning officers. It is beyond the powers of RECs. In the case of Adamawa, the REC arrogated to himself powers that he did not have as “Chief Collation Officer” for the State and the returning officer for the Governorship election.

“There is no such designation under the law and, curiously for a lawyer, he did not refer to any section of the Electoral Act to justify what is clearly his usurpation of the power of the Returning Officer. Indeed, it is noteworthy that the same Returning Officer handled the collation of results of the presidential election in Adamawa State held on 25th February 2023 and the main Governorship election held on 18th March 2023. The REC only discovered his powers during the supplementary election.

“Thirdly, the REC referred to a report from the security agencies (Commissioner of Police and the DSS) which advised that election material should not be moved to LGAs on Friday in spite of their availability and logistics arrangement for doing so. As a result, deployment to LGAs was only carried out on the day of the election and this may explain why some of the polling units, particularly in Numan, opened late as reported by some observers. He also said that the security report advised a change of collation centre where all results will be collated. This is strange.

“RECs lack powers to change collation centres without the Commission’s approval after consultation with stakeholders. The National Commissioners present were right to insist on the Commission’s collation centre where the results of presidential and governorship elections were collated in the full glare of the party agents, observers, and the media. The REC appeared to be working to the answer by relying on security report from the same agencies that aided and abetted his illegality.

“Fourthly, the REC referred to “authentic” results. From where did these results originate? If they were really authentic polling unit results, they would have been uploaded to the IReV. As for the results from various levels of collation, we all saw the REC making his illegal declaration without any forms in the manner the Commission collates results and declares winners. He may right now be in hiding filling bogus forms, but once they surface in public, the inconsistency will show. In any case, the authentic results from all the 69 polling units across the 20 LGAs where the supplementary elections took place on 15th April 2023 is now public knowledge. There is a severe penalty under the Electoral Act 2022 for publishing fake election results, which does not provide the option of a fine.

“Finally, the whole statement is a charade. The REC should come out of hiding to make a statement to the police. He cannot be hiding forever and cannot continue to move about in a private jet as he was allegedly flown from Adamawa to his hiding place.

“If Mr. Hudu Yunusa Ari is not ready to voluntarily submit himself to police investigation as directed by the President, the police should declare him wanted immediately.”