Law properly so called has an inner core that radiates equality, justice and majesty. It fears no one and ought to treat everyone equally. Treat like cases alike and unlike cases unlike is its credo. It is a measuring rod that ensures that the social foundations of society are kept in place when it prescribes the expectations for citizens and groups in society. It is in this context that this discourse reviews the events of the Adamawa State governorship election in the last couple of days and how the law has responded to the misadventure of a resident electoral commissioner who decided to ridicule himself and the Nigerian society.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Adamawa State, Hudu Yunusa-Ari, without authority and knowing that what he wanted to do was in clear violation of the law and its due process proceeded to declare the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress Aisha Dahiru as the elected and returned governor in the just-concluded election. Apart from not being the returning officer, he made the declaration at a time when the collation of results in the supplementary election had not been concluded. He was accompanied to the declaration by the Adamawa State Commissioner of Police and the State Commandant of Nigerian Security and Civil Defence Corps. In the heat of the moment, a national commissioner of the Independent National Electoral Commissioner who was reported to have some resemblance with the REC was brutalised and manhandled by a mob. There are allegations that the sum of N2bn exchanged hands as a bribe to facilitate the REC’s action.
INEC’s reaction was to immediately declare that the REC had no such power to call the result at a time the collation had not been concluded as well as his having no authority to do so at all. He was summoned to INEC’s headquarters in Abuja and told to hand over to the administrative secretary of the commission in the state. The Inspector General of Police, Usman Baba, ordered removal of the Adamawa State Commissioner of Police and the President, Major General Muhammadu Buhari (retd) has ordered the investigation and prosecution of Yunusa-Ari and anyone found culpable in the incident. However, the REC has not been arrested nor has he reported to INEC headquarters in Abuja. A number of issues have arisen from this state of affairs.
The Electoral Act states that any person who announces or publishes an election result knowing the same to be false or which is at variance with the signed certificate of return commits an offence and is liable on conviction to imprisonment for a term of 36 months. Seven days after the action that constitutes the offence had been completed, the Police, Department of State Services, Civil Defence, etc., and the entire law enforcement apparatus are pretending like they do not know how to effect an arrest or if the person is not responding to summons, they can longer declare a culprit wanted. This is the third day after the president spoke on the issue and there is a dangerous silence. What exactly is happening?
How can someone who reportedly engaged in criminality have the state CP and Civil Defence commandant accompanying him to the venue of the commission of the offence? They were there to provide security for the commission of the offence, as accomplices before or after the fact of the crime? How did the REC depart from Adamawa State? Media reports indicate that he flew out in an aircraft. Who owns the aircraft or who chartered the aircraft? Where did the aircraft take him to? Within or outside Nigeria? Nigerian law has different categories and grades of participants in a crime. There are conspirators, accessories before and after the crime as well as the principal offender(s). This discourse insists that there are prima facie cases of criminality against the senior security officials that accompanied Yunusa-Ari to the venue of the declaration, and indeed offered him protection when he was making the declaration as well as escorting him to leave Adamawa State. Nigerian criminal jurisprudence is unambiguous on this.
Therefore, the police and other law enforcement authorities cannot simply remove their senior officials who participated in this crime in a manner suggesting that they do not understand the gravity of the offence. These officials should be arrested, investigated and charged to court for the crimes which are manifest in the Electoral Act 2022 and other penal laws. They should be suspended from office immediately, and brought to trial in the next couple of days. The investigations need not take long because the bulk of the crime was committed before cameras and the majority of Nigerians have watched the crime scene and the offence is complete. The REC should be arrested immediately. If for any reason the police cannot find him, he should be declared wanted locally, and Interpol contacted to ensure that anywhere he is hiding outside Nigeria will deliver him up.
The investigations should also get to the root of the bribery allegation. The speed with which Aisha read an acceptance speech and proceeded to the courts to stop INEC from concluding the process seems premeditated. It was not an action taken in response to a declaration or the spur of the moment. It was pre-planned and well thought through. Also, there seems to have been an assurance that “impunity will be protected” and the real winner of the election will, in the usual tradition be taunted to “go to court.’’
There is a popular impression of collusion in high places leading to this brazenness and devil may care actions. The authorities seem to be sowing impunity, criminality and idiocy as part of state craft and if this kind of action is not brought to book, beyond verbal condemnations, Nigerians should be prepared for the worst in subsequent elections.Unless there is something known to the law enforcement authorities that other Nigerians have not been briefed of, the delay in arresting the REC is sending dangerous messages across the whole Nigeria viz, that some persons are above the law; that crime can be committed with impunity and that the country has simply gone to the dogs.
For Buhari, your actions and inactions in response to this criminality in these last days of your presidency will be part of what will define your presidency. Nigerians are tired of double standards, selective enforcement of laws and policies and the hypocrisy of subverting the law in the name of its enforcement. For the police, Nigerians simply want to see you do the job for which you are paid. No stories but only action will assuage the public anger and outrage on this crime.
