Less than 72 hours before Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Adamawa state, supporters of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) have called for the removal of the Resident Electoral Commissioner in the state.
The PDP supporters during a walk in Yola, the state capital on Wednesday insisted on the removal of Hudu Yunusa as the REC, saying "he lacks the required moral credibility to preside over the polls”.
They urged the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmood Yakubu to immediately redeploy a new REC to oversee the rerun.
The PDP groups expressed their views through their leaders, displayed placards and in a letter submitted to the INEC state office.
The placards read: 'We demand free and fair rerun', 'Adamawa is a peaceful state, INEC should not ruin our peace', and 'Beware of a referee-turned Number 9 striker', among others.
SaharaReporters on March 19, 2023 published a report along with a leaked audio recording in which Yunusa directed an election official, Hammajam Mohammed, to rig the governorship election in favour of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Aishatu Dahiru Ahmed Binani.
A spokesperson for the PDP supporters, Abdulrahman Bobboi, said with over 31,000 ballots as the margin of lead, Governor Ahmadu Fintiri was poised to clinch a second term if INEC would be unbiased in the conduct of the supplementary election.
In their letter addressed to Yakubu through the INEC office in Yola, which was jointly signed by six support group leaders, the groups called for a free, fair and credible supplementary governorship rerun in Adamawa.
The Adamawa governorship election was declared inconclusive after results from 69 polling units were cancelled.
PDP's Fintiri polled 421,524 votes to take the lead with 31,249. Meanwhile, APC's Binani got 390,375 votes. As it stands, the 37,016 ballots at stake would be contested by the two candidates on Saturday.