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| Late Prince Abubakar Audu |
Fresh legal and political firestorm in Kogi State has ensued following the resolved of the winning and ruling All Progressives Congress, APC planned Primary Election to replace late Prince Abubakar Audu after the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, yesterday, invited the party to forward a replacement in the inconclusive Kogi State governorship election.
The INEC decision followed a pronouncement to that effect by the Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami. While the APC welcomed the decision, the opposition Peoples Democratic Party, PDP demanded Malami’s resignation as it described the decision as an affront to democracy laced with mines to torpedo the democratic choice of the people in Kogi State.
The PDP has, however, asked the AGF to immediately resign from office over his position on the inconclusive governorship election in Kogi State.
The former ruling party also called on INEC chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to resign from office for what it described as his inability to exert the autonomy of the commission in the face of the confusion created by Audu’s death.
The party said the position of the minister compelled INEC to arrive at what it described as an unconstitutional decision to allow the APC to substitute its candidate for the proposed supplementary governorship election.
PDP said this in its reaction to the decision of INEC to allow the APC to replace Audu with a fresh candidate and also to fix December 5 for the conduct of the supplementary election.
A statement by the National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, in Abuja on Tuesday, said the opposition party had summoned an emergency national caucus meeting of the PDP to deliberate on the matter.
He said, “The party is shocked that INEC, a supposedly independent electoral umpire, could allow itself to succumb to the antics of the APC by following the unlawful directive of an obviously partisan AGF to substitute a candidate in the middle of the ballot process.
“We are all aware that the two legal documents guiding INEC in the conduct of elections – the Constitution and the Electoral Act – have provisions for electoral exigencies as well as empower the electoral body to fully take responsibility for any of its actions or inaction without undue interference from any quarters whatsoever.
“We are therefore at a loss as to which sections of these two relevant laws INEC and the AGF relied on in arriving at their bizarre decision to substitute a dead candidate in an ongoing election even after the timeline for such has elapsed under all the rules.
“INEC, as a statutory body, has the full complements of technical hands in its legal department to advise it appropriately and we wonder why it had to wait for directives from the AGF, an external party, if not for partisan and subjective interest.”
Metuh added that the PDP had “rejected in its entirety this brazen move by the APC and INEC to circumvent the laws and ambush the yet-to-be concluded election by introducing a practice that is completely alien to the constitution and the electoral act.’’
He added, “The clear implication of this action of the AGF and INEC is that the APC would be fielding two different governorship candidates in the ongoing Kogi election, meaning that INEC would be transferring votes cast for the late Prince Abubakar Audu to another candidate, scenarios that have no place in the constitution of the land.”
Metuh alleged that INEC under the leadership of Yakubu had shown itself as partisan, morally bankrupt and obviously incapable of conducting a credible election within the ambit of the laws.
He said the PDP was demanding the immediate resignation of the INEC chairman, alleging further that the nation’s democracy could not afford to be left in the hands of an electoral umpire that he believed could not exert its independence and the sanctity of the electoral process.
Alhaji Yahaya Bello, whose name the All Progressives Congress (APC’s) National Working Committee (NWC) has forwarded to the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) as replacement for the late Prince Abubakar Audu in Kogi State Governorship election, has made overtures to the late politician’s loyalists and urged them to support him in the supplementary election.
