Kogi poll: PDP, Wada ask court to declare them winner

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Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to declare them the winner of the November 21, 2015 governorship election which the Independent National Electoral Commission said was inconclusive.

The plaintiffs argued in their suit filed on Friday that in view of the death of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Abubukar Audu, Wada should be declared the winner of the election as the surviving candidate with the majority of lawful votes cast during the Saturday poll.

They also asked the court to compel the Independent National Electoral Commission to issue a Certificate of Return to Wada.

Those joined as respondents to the suit are the INEC, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the APC.

In a separate application, the plaintiffs also asked the court to restrain the INEC from conducting the supplementary election scheduled for December 5.

The plaintiffs through their counsel, Chris Uche (SAN), also asked the court to issue an order of injunction restraining the APC from organising or holding a fresh primary for the purpose of substituting its candidate ahead of the supplementary or other election for the 2015 Kogi State governorship election.”

They also asked the court to declare that the APC could not organise and hold a fresh primary election for the purpose of the supplementary election in view of the “immutable statutory timeliness provided by enabling sections of the Electoral Act 2010 and the INEC timetable for Kogi Governorship election.”

The plaintiffs asked the court to declare that the AGF was not competent to issue directives to INEC, allowing the APC to substitute its candidate for the Kogi governorship election after its commencement, and that such directives are null and void for inconsistency with the provisions of the constitution.

They also asked the court to hold that the APC could not lawfully nominate a candidate for the supplementary governorship election slated for December 5 without a valid and legally cognisable primary election of the APC, conducted within the mandatory timeliness specified by the Electoral Act.

They asked the court to declare that, according “to the provisions of Section 141 of the Electoral Act, 2010, votes scored by a candidate who died during an election cannot be inherited by or transferred to a person who was not a candidate at the said election and who did not participate in all stages of such election, for the purpose of concluding such election.”

PDP State Collation Agent for the governorship election, Mr. Joe Agada, stated in part in a 36-paragraph affidavit, “That with the demise of the APC’s candidate, the two leading candidates are Wada with 199,514 votes and that of the Labour Party with 8, 756 votes.

“That I know as a fact that INEC on this basis ought to declare Wada the winner of the governorship election of November 21, 2015, being the only surviving candidate with the highest number of votes and scoring 25 per cent of the votes in all the Local Government Areas of the State.”

The case has yet to be assigned to any judge.

Earlier on Thursday, Audu’s running mate, James Faleke, wrote to the INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, asking that he be declared the winner of the inconclusive election.

In a letter written by his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), Faleke said that the only option opened to INEC was to declare him the governor-elect.

It read in part, “What INEC should do is to obey, respect and comply with the letters, spirit, intendment and tenor of the constitution by not only declaring the APC as the winner of the election, but by also declaring our client as the governor-elect.”

The lawyer argued that INEC’s directive to the APC to conduct a new primary to select a candidate to replace Audu was, “unfounded, both legally and constitutionally.

“It can also not be reasonably or rationally defended.”

Olanipekun cited to the INEC Chairman provision of section 68(1) and (c) of the Electoral Act to the effect that any result declared by Returning Officer shall be final and binding, and can only be reviewed or upturned by an election tribunal.

Source: Punch