Suspended REC’s Trial: PDP Seeks Tinubu’s Intervention

• The PDP has accused Aishatu Ahmed Binani of attempting to scuttle the trial of Hudu Yunusa-Ari
• The court has ordered a stay of action on the charges filed against Hudu
• Binani has denied the allegations, calling them “baseless”

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has accused Aishatu Ahmed Binani, the APC’s governorship candidate in Adamawa State in the last election, of attempting to scuttle the trial of Hudu Yunusa-Ari, the suspended Resident Electoral Commissioner of Adamawa.

Binani had petitioned the Federal High Court in Abuja to stay Hudu’s prosecution.

In a ruling issued on Monday, the court ordered a stay of action on the charges filed by INEC against Hudu for illegally declaring the results of the last governorship election in Adamawa State.

In a statement issued yesterday, Idris Yahya, the PDP’s secretary in Adamawa, urged President Bola Tinubu to intervene.

Binani’s behaviour during and after the election, he claimed, demonstrated her desperation and moral bankruptcy.

Binani responded by calling the PDP’s claims “baseless.”

Binani, who spoke through her media aide, Maulud Usman, said:

Since the beginning of the campaign, they (PDP) have been accusing people. They do things and accuse people of it.

Recall that a Federal High Court in Abuja, on Monday, stopped the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) from prosecuting the suspended Adamawa Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Hudu Yunusa-Ari, over his declaration of Aisha Dahiru, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, as governor in the March 18 poll.

Justice Donatus Okorowo made the order after Mr Michael Aondoaka, SAN, counsel to Dahiru, moved the ex-parte motion to the effect.

In the ex-parte motion marked: FHC/ABJ/CS/935/2023, the APC candidate in the poll, sued INEC, the Attorney-General of the Federation (AGF) and another as respondents.

Aondoaka, while moving the motion on Monday, argued that until the election petition tribunal decides the fate of his client in accordance with Section 149 of the Electoral Act, 2022, the prosecution of Yunusa-Ari cannot be said to be valid.

He said the decision of INEC to file an action against any person involved in Dahiru’s April 15 declaration as winner of the supplementary poll in the state when the tribunal was yet to determine the petition of his client, would deprive her of Section 285(6) of the law which gives 180 days within which the petition filed on May 6 should be dispensed with.