By Segun Ayobolu
After a waiting period of intense suspense, the Kogi State Election Petition Tribunal in successive judgements beginning on Monday dismissed the petitions against the election of Governor Yahaya Bello by Mr James Abiodun Faleke of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Captain Idris Wada (Rtd) of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mrs. Zainab Usman of the African Democratic Congress (ADC) and the Labour Party respectively. In each instance, the Tribunal found the petitions deficient and unmeritorious and thus declared Yahaya Bello duly elected as governor of the state.
Easily the most anticipated of the petitions was that of Honourable James Abiodun Faleke, who was the running mate to the late Prince Abubakar Audu, who died after the collation but shortly before the formal announcement by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) of the outcome of the November 21, 2015 poll. Before Audu’s demise, the Returning Officer for the election, Professor Emmanuel Kuchi, Vice Chancellor of the University of Agriculture, Makurdi, had declared the victory of the APC in 16 of the 21 local governments with a total of 240, 867 votes while the incumbent governor, Captain Idris Wada, of the PDP scored 199, 514 votes emerging victorious in five Local Government Areas.
The Returning Officer, however, went on to declare the election inconclusive because, while the differential margin of votes between Audu and Wada was 41,353, the total number of registered voters in 91 polling units across 18 Local Governments where the election was cancelled was 49, 953, a figure higher than that with which Audu beat Wada. It was thus the decision of INEC to hold a supplementary election on December 5, 2015 to bring the election to closure.
Some analysts accused the electoral umpire of bad faith since it was well aware that the number of duly accredited voters in the 91 polling units where elections were cancelled was no more than 25,000, significantly less than the APC’s margin of victory and thus rendering a supplementary election superfluous. From this point of view, the election was thus irreversibly conclusive. Even if all the votes in the 91 units were allocated to the PDP, the APC victory of November 21 still stood secure and inviolate.
The INEC did not help matters when it sought the opinion of the Attorney General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Mallam Abubakar Malami (SAN) on what its next line of action should be. For one, the electoral commission has its own legal advisers and should have protected its institutional autonomy. The AGF is an appointee of the APC-controlled Federal Government. His opinion was, therefore, believed to be that of a powerful clique within the party bent on achieving a pre-determined outcome in the Kogi polls. Nevertheless, INEC followed the advice of the AGF and requested the APC to present another candidate for the scheduled supplementary election. The party nominated Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who had come second to the late Audu in the party primaries of August 29, 2015, but who had refrained from participating in activities of the party since his defeat.
Faleke kicked and declined to participate in the supplementary polls insisting that the November election was conclusive. It had been won decisively by the Audu/Faleke ticket. Section 187 (1) of the 1999 constitution states that “ …a candidate for the office of Governor of a State shall not be deemed to have been validly nominated for such office unless he nominates another candidate as his associate for his running for the office of Governor, who is to occupy the office of Deputy Governor”. Faleke contributed as much to the APC’s electoral victory of November 21 as Audu. Why did the constitution insist that a candidate could only run for office as governor if he picks a running mate?
Furthermore, Section 181 (1) of the constitution provides that if a duly elected governor dies before subscribing to the oath of office, the person elected with him as Deputy Governor “shall be sworn in as Governor and he shall nominate a new Deputy- Governor who shall be appointed by the Governor with the approval of a simple majority of the House of Assembly of the State”.
There are those who argue, however, that the provisions of Section 181 (1) do not apply in the Kogi case. Prince Audu had not yet been declared duly elected by INEC before his demise and this development is a novel one unanticipated by the drafters of the constitution. Was the election of November 21 conclusive or not since the Audu/Faleke ticket had won the constitutional requisites of the highest number of votes and the spread of 25% of the votes cast in each of at least two thirds of the 21 Local Governments in the state? Shouldn’t Faleke have been declared duly elected by INEC since he was on the joint ticket with the deceased governorship APC governorship candidate as running mate? Could Yahaya Bello be deemed to have been duly elected as governor when he participated in the supplementary election without a valid running mate? These are some of the issues to which Faleke sought judicial interpretations and decisions at the Election Petition Tribunal.
Although this columnist has not yet seen a full copy of the Tribunal’s judgement, news reports indicate that the judicial body ruled that Faleke has no locus standi to challenge the election of Bello when INEC has declared the exercise inconclusive. The tribunal further declared that deciding the candidate of a political party is not under the jurisdiction of a court. “A candidate cannot stand election without being sponsored by a party; the Electoral Tribunal has no power to determine the candidate of a party. The issues raised by the petitioner bordered on the nomination of the 2nd respondent (Yahaya Bello), which arose from the death of Prince Audu; Bello did not nominate himself. Both the petitioner and the 2nd respondent belong to the same party and were sponsored by their party. The APC has the right to substitute a candidate as it deems fit” the Tribunal reportedly said.
Most curiously, the Tribunal also declared Faleke’s withdrawal letter from the supplementary election as Yahaya Bello’s running mate to be invalid because it was addressed to INEC rather than his political party. The implication is that Yahaya Bello contested in the supplementary election with Faleke as his valid running mate. On what basis then did Bello subsequently appoint Honourable Simon Achuba as Deputy Governor two weeks after being sworn in without a deputy as required by the constitution? Again, if the party has absolute rights to present any candidate of its choice for an election, on what basis did the Supreme Court declare Rotimi Amaechi as the true candidate of the PDP for the governorship election in 2007 and ordered that Sir Celestine Omehia, victorious candidate of the PDP in the election vacate the office of Rivers State governor for Amaechi? Surely, it will be interesting to see how higher courts will treat these issues as Faleke has vowed to appeal the Tribunal’s judgement after consulting his lawyers. Kogi has certainly become a veritable constitutional laboratory and one can only hope that the ultimate judicial pronouncement on the Kogi imbroglio will help plug a key loop hole in the constitution and contribute meaningfully to the country’s political development.
However, the ongoing political crisis in Kogi, particularly the descent to anarchy in the state legislature, can be blamed largely on the national leadership of the APC. The most sensible, rational and logical thing for the party was to have declared Faleke, who was already on the ticket and a key contributor to the outcome of the November 21 election, as its candidate for the supplementary election if that exercise was even necessary at all. By bringing Yahaya Bello, a complete stranger to the electoral process as the party’s substitute for Audu in the supplementary polls, the party leadership helped fuel the belief that a powerful caucus in Abuja is determined to ensure that a Yoruba man and Christian will not be allowed to be governor of Kogi State. This is most dangerous and unfortunate.
In turn, an obviously insecure and immature Governor Yahaya Bello, who believes that his power source derives from a shadowy Abuja clique rather than the good people of Kogi State, is brazenly using the most crude strong arm tactics to consolidate his hold on power in the Confluence state. Thus, five members of a 25-member Kogi State House of Assembly loyal to the governor, have illegally seized control of the House, purportedly impeached the Speaker, Alhaji Momoh Lawal, and under the watch of armed soldiers passed the governor’s list of commissioners as well as the state’s 2016 budget. That this is happening under the party of change is most unbelievable. You cannot credibly claim to be fighting against corruption while perpetrating the worst forms of political, moral and spiritual corruption as is so evident in Kogi today. Physician, heal thyself!
