Come January 28, 2016, Yahaya Bello will be sworn in as governor of Kogi State. That is what fate has decreed for this gentleman who came a distant second in the governorship primaries of the All Progressives Congress, APC. He was roundly defeated in that primaries by Abubakar Audu, now late. God Bless his soul!
Audu, a one-term former governor of the state was coasting home to victory in the governorship election held October 28 when he suddenly fell ill and died. A few hours after his death, the governorship election was declared inconclusive.
Although the APC ticket of Audu/James Faleke had scored 240,867 votes to the Idris Wada/Awoniyi’s 199,514 votes, the Independent National Electoral Commission claimed a supplementary election in 91 polling units must be held before a winner could emerge. These polling units were said to have 49,000 votes. And since the Audu ticket was leading incumbent Governor Wada with only 41,000 votes, in the wisdom of the electoral umpire, it would be unsafe to declare a winner. But it is not impossible, of course in our peculiar clime, that all the 49,000 voters would cast their vote for incumbent Governor Wada in the supplementary election.
And shortly after Audu’s death was announced, INEC asked the APC to substitute him with another candidate. Incumbent Governor Wada had a better idea; he claimed with the death of Audu, the APC has forfeited its ticket. Thus there was no need for a supplementary election, and he should be declared winner. To prove that it was not some farcical joke, he went to court to stop the supplementary election. Thankfully, the court threw out his prayer and the election held. But the farce did not end there.
The APC staged its own farce too. Asked to name a replacement for late Audu, the hierarchy of the party, apparently without wide consultation, picked Bello who came a distant second at the primaries. The latter in turn picked Faleke as running mate. Faleke, in turn cried foul. He went to court to stop the supplementary election, claiming he should have been picked as replacement for Audu, his late principal. Furthermore, he made it known he was not going to be a running mate to Bello. The court threw out his prayer too.
The supplementary election held December 5. Bello, who had no running mate, which was a violation of the electoral law, polled 6,885 votes against Wada’s 5,363 votes. And at the end of the tally INEC declared Bello winner with 247,752 votes.
The story is not ending happily yet.
Faleke has filed his case at the Election Petition Tribunal against INEC and the governor-elect. He maintains that even though the Constitution did not envisage a situation where a candidate would die during an election, common sense dictated that he should have been the replacement in this case.
Furthermore, although the 91 polling units where supplementary election was held had 49,000 voters, only 35,000 had permanent voter cards and on November 21, only 25,000 of them turned up for accreditation. Thus, there was nothing “inconclusive” in that election in which the Audu/Faleke ticket led the runner-up by 41,000 votes. Therefore, he is asking the tribunal to declare him governor.
Methinks, this case will run its full course. The Supreme Court will be the final arbiter. Something tells me that the Faleke/Mohammed Audu ticket may have the last laugh. That will surely be fate playing its tricks once again.
Credit: Tell