Pro-Faleke protesters lay siege to INEC office

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Protesters clamouring for the declaration of Hon. Abiodun Faleke today, laid siege to the INEC headquarters in Abuja.

They called on the electoral commission to shelve its proposed supplementary poll in the state and declare Faleke as governor-elect.

The protesters who arrived the commission’s headquarters at about 11:00am on Thursday, said the scheduled supplementary poll was an afront on democracy.

One of the protesters, who is a lawyer, Hajia Halima Alfa said Audu had won the election before his death.

She said that margin between the two leading parties was more than the number of voters with PVCs in the affected polling units and that INEC erred by not declaring the late Audu as the winner of the election.

“INEC was not sincere with democracy and the Kogi people.

Only 25,000 voters have PVCs in the 91 polling units where elections were cancelled. Going by the 41,000 margin with which the APC was leading, the party had won the election.

“We are in a situation in which even if all the 25,000 voters cast their votes for PDP, the election had already been won by the Audu/Faleke ticket.

INEC should not toy with the destinies of the over 500,000 people that voted during the election. Faleke should therefore be declared the governor-elect of the state”.

Vanguard gathered that majority of the protesters were supporters of the deceased politician and his running mate, Hon. Abiodun Faleke.

It would be recalled that INEC declared the Kogi governorship poll inconclusive before the demise of Audu. The commission said there are about 49,989 votes to be contested for.

The APC has also replaced the late politician with Alh. Yahaya Bello who came second during the August 29 governorship primary of the party.

Source: Vanguard