…Plans to Delete Five LGAs from Kogi State
In few days to come, SDP Kogi State hopes to delete 5 LGAs of Kogi from the Nigerian Constitution so their candidate Alhaji Muri Ajaka can win in court against the incumbent, His Excellency, Alhaji Usman Ahmed Ododo.
Let’s put this in context. The 5 LGAs they hope to delete are the stronghold of the incumbent Governor. Whilst the SDP hopes to maintain votes in his own stronghold, he intends to delete votes from the zone of his political husband.
To understand it properly, the SDP candidate (Kogi East) claims the incumbent rigged the entire LGAs of his own stronghold, (Kogi Central) but he doesn’t intend for votes in his own Senatorial District to be deleted even when the contracted election monitoring group led by Osita Chidoka said some polling units in the zone of the petitioner were also rigged.
Now, to the neutral Senatorial District, Kogi West: the incumbent won with a wide margin with the SDP candidate struggling to get the necessary 25% from that district which he failed to acquire. By implication, the margin of spread in the majority LGAs were only won by the incumbent. However, even if the entire LGA were he comes from was deleted, the major opposition candidate has not secured 25% in majority LGAs even with the figures he hopes to win by. This is a contradiction of popularity claims. Why? He is popular in Kogi East, can he lay same claim to Kogi Central and Kogi West?
Come with me,
As hilarious as that sounds, they want the Constitution to be amended by the Supreme Court using the electoral Act in declaring them winner. They also intend to make the Supreme Court overule herself in precedent she had set in the past based on judgements in other state elections.
Their claim is that elections were rigged in the entire polling units of the 5 LGAs in Kogi Central. I mean, every one, including the one that Senator Natasha Akpoti votes. By this implication, all votes of even Senator Dino Melaye should be canceled so that one man can be declared winner.
Even from the arrangee Athena foundation led by Osita Chidoka, a card carrying member of PDP and former Minister in Nigeria who sourced his information “independently” and generated data as an election monitoring group which is not licensed by INEC or empowered by the Nigerian Constitution to conduct or declare election results; he pointed that the result generated which puts the SDP candidate in the lead was still insufficient in acquiring the constitutional requirement of 25% in at least 14 LGAs of the state. By implication, the SDP candidate only won in his Senatorial District and failed to win in the two other Senatorial Districts, failing to amass the minimum mark of 25% of votes in majority of the 21 LGAs of the state.
They will insult me and the Judges, but let me ask layman questions from those who are giving false hopes to our people:
- Is the Electoral Act Subject to the Grundnorm, which is The Nigerian Constitution or the Nigerian Constitution is superior to the Electoral Act? Take for instance, the BVAS Machine is an electronic device to validate presence of voters just like the Card Readers during the Court Case between Buhari Vs Jonathan. What the court ruled was very clear. Now, the electoral act stipulated the guidelines for INEC to follow before declaration of the results, not after. INEC has declared and in court they defended themselves as to why they declared the results.
- The votes to be yanked off if 5 LGAs are canceled even when it wasn’t proven is substantial enough to affect the electoral outcome if elections are held, which is also part of the electoral Act. Therefore, is cancelation of an entire LGA, instead of polling units proven to have manipulated not a subject of contradiction on opposing claims? Total voters who turned up is about 630k. SDP is asking for over 288k to be canceled. Is this not laughable? What happens to the principle of margin of lead?
- To make it more laughable, SDP went to depose over 600 petitions in court from over 600 polling units, when it was time for those who deposed those petition (witnesses) to come out to testify, they produced only 25 TOTAL witnesses in court. In summary, they couldn’t bring witnesses to corroborate their story. How do you intend to use few polling units where you claim failed electoral guidelines to cancel all the Polling units in the LGA?
- All polling units have the BVAS Machine which is used for accreditation. In the LGAs of interest, less than 92 BVAS were demonstrated in court. Don’t we have more than 92 polling unit in the entire 5 LGAs of Kogi Central? So how do they want to use assumptions to cancel the LGA instead of cancelation of some polling units in the LGA were overvoting was proven? It is like saying I stole your meat without even proving you had a goat and made pepper soup.
- During the demonstration of BVAS, the INEC acclaimed staff subpoenaed to testify couldn’t prove he was a staff of INEC as he didn’t produce his Identity Card. Secondly, during cross examination, he revealed that the BVAS machine could be reconfigured many times by even a thug who has access to the password of the machine- proving the vulnerability of the device to manipulation by anybody. By implication, even SDP agents could have manipulated the BVAS machine to reduce accreditation figures. Just imagine that legal scenario or thinking. To make the matter worse, the Star ICT Witness of SDP who claims to be an INEC staff said he wasn’t in Kogi State on the day of Election. He was in Imo State. This is even removed from the Ebira witnesses which they were bringing to court to help their case who later started compromising it by testifying in opposite direction that the elections held appropriately and they aren’t even polling unit agents of SDP. Some even said they didn’t know their petition would be used in open court.
Stay with me,
- The hysteria of victory by SDP members is laughable, they’ve been celebrating for days now and even hoping to pray their way into victory, just like a poor man trying to pray his way from poverty into overnight riches.
- The SDP media hirelings have laid siege of personality assault on anyone who disagree with their political choices, including the INEC umpire and Learned Judges who presided over the Tribunal and Appeal Court Case. They have accused them of taking bribes to the tune of 6Billion at the Tribunal, 10Billion at the Appeal Court but now, they claim Supreme Court judges are saints who will restore their mandate. As funny as that sounds, sticking to their logic, Supreme Court Judges served at the Federal High Courts (Judges used for Tribunal Sittings) before elevation to the Appeal Court and then promotion to Supreme Court. By implication, they’ve served in the lower courts before coming to serve at the apex court. The accusations of bribery has rubbed off on them all, so why are they so confident this time since their case which was lost at the Tribunal and Appeal Court were procured? Have the corrupt Judges now repented and given their lives to Christ?
- As I conclude, the funniest of their emotional theories is how a candidate would be declared winner from 16 LGAs out of 21 and 25% vote spread would be determined from the 16 LGAs which won’t necessitate a re-run. It was on the same audacity that two pleas of their candidate was struck out on the first sitting at the Supreme Court where he demanded that the entire 7 Members of the Supreme Court Judges should sit on his case instead of the 5 Constituted for it. For them, Nigeria should leave everything to answer to their request, however absurd or ridiculous it sounds.
In conclusion, our people need to wake up to the reality of real politicking, the Era of name-dropping, rumour mongering, propaganda and lies to keep gullible people on false cruise won’t win elections. Strategic planning, inter-ethnic collaboration and religious tolerance should be the bridge upon which we anchor our political realities. Ethnic politics is archaic, regardless of the group is favours. Agenda of any form cannot be the yardstick of Contemporary political mobilization as it organizes some people and disorganizes unity.
As we speak, the incumbent Governor Usman Ahmed Ododo has paid Kogi Civil Servants their August Salaries from 21 of August to cushion the pains of inflation. Nobody cares about any case in court except politicians who want to cease power for their personal gains. They don’t care, they only want their salaries paid and infrastructure put on ground to ease their livelihood.
You can now begin to insult me. Blackmail me. Curse me! Be rest assured, it won’t give you victory in court or affect reality.
My name is Kogi Rebel.
– Promise Emmanuel
Senior Special Assistant to Governor Usman Ododo on CyberCrime.
