The whole world wait with bated breath to see how the impunity of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in Kogi State will be resolved this week as the state awaits the inauguration of a new governor on Wednesday.
Recall that the governorship election in the state last November was nearing conclusion when the APC governorship candidate, Abubakar Audu, slumped and died.
The electoral laws in Nigeria envisaged a candidate dying before and after elections and made provisions for such. But our draughtsmen never contemplated that a candidate would die in the course of an election.
As at the time of Audu’s death, he was winning the election as all local governments had been counted. The electoral body had the option of declaring him winner in which case his running mate, James Faleke, would have stepped into his shoes as governor-elect. The other alternative would have been to declare Idris Wada who had the highest number of votes winner.
INEC did neither as it declared the election inconclusive because it said the total number of votes in the area where election did not hold or were voided outweighed the gap between Audu and Wada requiring a supplementary polls. It was later discovered that whereas Audu was leading Wada with 40,000 votes, the total number of PVCs in the areas was about 25,000.
Before anyone could spell Audu, the Attorney General of the Federation came out with an opinion that the APC could pick the next person to the deceased candidate in its primaries to complete the supplementary polls. The electoral body took a cue and asked APC to bring a fresh candidate for the polls. All the laws cited by the AGF had nothing to do with the Kogi situation lest we forget.
Within days, the APC leadership picked Yahaya Bello who came second in the primaries but moved over to the SDP as its new candidate. Some APC youths actually claimed that Bello already picked Olusola Olumoroti as his deputy to run on SDP ticket before eventually stepping down for Wada whom he allegedly worked for in the election.
The APC thereafter asked James Faleke to run with Bello in the supplementary election which the former refused insisting he was the governor-elect.
The APC went ahead to field Bello for the election by inheriting the votes of Audu, a ticket he was not part of. He contested the election without a running mate as the law is very clear that no governorship candidate shall be deemed to be validly in an election if he had no running mate. Bello had only 6885 votes in the supplementary elections which were the only lawful votes to his name in all the election except the electoral body can bring out any law that says a candidate can inherit the votes of a dead man.
We wait to see if this Bello would be inaugurated on Wednesday as governor of Kogi State without a deputy. Will he pick a deputy to be sworn alongside with him? Would he be sworn-in and thereafter pick a running mate who will have the oath of office administered to him? Neither would be legal. It is clear APC has shot itself in the foot if the rule of law had not been suspended in our clime.
For those who may not understand why the APC is playing impunity in Kogi State, there should be some explanations. James Faleke is a Yoruba man in Kogi State and faces a different direction to pray. A Yoruba man in the Assembly of Northern Governors. His third affliction is because he is a protege of Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu.
For the Yoruba elements who want to play politics in an unsettled polity, Kogi must have opened their eyes to the fact that while they are playing politics, the people they are in league with are playing region and religion without any pretense.
The swearing-in of Bello on Wednesday will mark a big milestone in APC reign of impunity at a time we are supposed to be celebrating “change”.
Awo’s admonition are quite relevant for this type of season that we are in Nigeria:
“If we are in the habit of practicing the opposite of what we preach, our admonition will not only lose their force and cogency, but also we ourselves will forfeit every claim to credibility. An ounce of example, it has been widely said, is far better than a ton of precepts.”
-Address to the Congregation of the University of Ife (1970): In Voice of Wisdom, 1981.
Credit: Daily Times
