Fintiri contested against APC, INEC – Kamale, PDP Financial Secretary

The Deputy National Financial Secretary of the Peoples Democratic Party, Adamu Kamale, who served as the co-agent for the party in the March 18 governorship election in Adamawa State, tells HINDI LIVINUS the party’s position on the exercise

You opposed INEC’s declaration of Adamawa State governorship elections as inconclusive; don’t you think INEC made the right call based on the protest by the PDP against the Resident Electoral Commissioner?

The popular saying that wonders shall never end describes what happened in Adamawa State. What we have witnessed from the candidacy of Senator Aishatu Binani is the strangest thing I have seen in my life. Everyone in Adamawa State, including the APC and its governorship candidate, knew that the elections of March 18 went on smoothly in virtually every polling unit. There was no major case of violence and disruption. The drama started at the state collation centre, with rumour that a miscreant entered and snatched the original results collation sheets for Fufore when the local government collation officer was making entry of the results from the ward. This happened towards the evening but the drama did not end there. The drama took a dramatic twist when the Resident Electoral Commissioner, Yunusa Hudu, was heard in a leaked audio (voice call) pleading with the electoral officer from Fufore to doctor the results in favour of the candidate of the All Progressive Congress Senator Binani.

What did you deduce from the audio?

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The audio was highly circulated in the state and it confirmed that the theft of the result sheet from Fufore by political hirelings was staged-managed to manipulate the outcome of the polls in favour of the APC. I was at the collation centre and witnessed all that happened first hand, when for some strange reasons the REC, who was not the returning officer, started making some strange announcements that there were two results before him. I considered this strange because the power of collating results rests with the returning officer and not the REC.

What did your party do?

The PDP collation agent rose to the occasion and confronted him with the intercepted voice recording, where he could be heard giving a directive to the electoral officer in Fufore to favour “this woman”. It was very apparent that the man was behind the whole drama. Thank God, after a lot of pressure and argument, INEC decided it would use the results on its server, the IReV portal as the primary source of information.

The APC candidate has called for the review of the results, are you okay with that?

I have heard people calling for the review of Fufore LGA results as well as results in 16 other local governments. I think this is very mischievous. First of all, the technology we have today is not the analog type we had yesterday. As of today, after the counting of votes at the polling units, the results are uploaded and transmitted to INEC server, which means that result has officially been submitted to INEC. The physical results being carried to collation centres were just back-ups. But today, people are calling for a review. The IReV is a public document, APC should go to IReV and download all the results from the IReV and compute the electronically transmitted results. If there is a difference between their figures and what INEC released, then they can come up with this complaint.

Your party made an issue out of the audio alleged to be the voice of the APC candidate, but that has not been proven. Have you let go of the issue?

First of all, in a sane world, her earlier statement of ‘wujja wujja’ which in Fulani is translated to mean getting victory at the polls by every means necessary is highly condemnable. For a democrat, that wasn’t a language to use. Election is an expression of the wishes of the people, so you have to respect the will of the people. She needs to apologise to the Adamawa people. Now Binani calling for a review is a disguised way of asking for the cancellation of results in areas where she hasn’t won so as to get a second chance in the contest. The votes that have been cast by the people are sacrosanct, and under the Nigerian constitution and the extant laws, nobody can change it except the courts. So, you have to go to the tribunal. Secondly, INEC didn’t do the right thing. At Bolki ward in Numan, which has about 7,000 votes, elections couldn’t hold due to logistics, and by the provision of the Electoral Act and the guidelines, it should have been rescheduled to hold within 24 hours, but instead of concentrating on that, INEC hastily declared the election as inconclusive. The right thing would have been to await the outcome of Bolki ward which would determine whether the margin of the lead by the governor exceeded or was below the cancelled elections, because postponed elections are treated separately from units where there are over-voting or cancellations due to violence. All Nigerians should call for the resignation of the REC, because he has been compromised, and he ought to have resigned by now. The commission needs to investigate and take action on his conduct, because billions of taxpayers’ money has been spent and no one person should ever be allowed to destroy the integrity of INEC.

If you are not satisfied with the conduct of the REC, what about INEC’s conduct of the exercise generally?

Nigerians should be very proud of their democracy, because we have set the pace in Africa. Nigeria’s elections have improved right from the inception of democracy in1999 up till this day. We have confidence in INEC. The BVAS has improved the integrity of the process and it has to be maintained and improved upon. However, no matter how much we pump into INEC, as long as there are bad eggs, it will still be sabotaged.

Your party claimed it contested against INEC and the APC, but some people are also of the view that the margin of victory between a sitting governor and an opposition member was an indication that he didn’t perform well in his first term. What do you say to that?

When you win an election, the victory should be celebrated. Whether you win an election with a large or small margin is a reflection of circumstances surrounding the election. For the governor to be re-elected with this margin shows he is accepted by the people and acknowledged as a performer. He has been rewarded for what he did for the people. There is no iota of doubt about this. Again, having now clearly seen the hands of INEC trying to manipulate the results against Governor Ahmadu Fintiri, only God knows the extent of the collusion and the damage done to him. Could it be the posting of the polling officers or that the electoral officials were compromised? To what extent, only God knows. But by and large, we cannot accuse an innocent person except we have proof. However, with what we are seeing, especially the attitude of the REC and the voice record of him, it has been seen that Fintiri contested against INEC. No one can dispute that. This election has shown that Governor Ahmadu Fintiri has done well and the people of Adamawa State are very happy with him. They have come out en masse and voted for him because they want him back. The election has already been won already.