As different controversies trail the outcome of the Kogi State governorship election, a legal practitioner, Jiti Ogunye, faults INEC for not declaring late Abubakar Audu of the APC winner of the poll.
Giving his thought on Sunrise Daily on Wednesday, Mr Ogunye said the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was wrong for declaring the election inconclusive.
“I start by saying that it was wrong for INEC not to have declared late Prince Abubakar Audu as a duly elected candidate at the time they completed that election. Their reason was tenuous, it is not valid.
“We had an election and in the election, that candidate who is late now (God rest his soul) scored 240,000 votes against the score of his closest rival who scored 199,000 votes (that is the incumbent governor),” he said.
Provision Of The Electoral Act
The lawyer believed that the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) had met the conditions of the constitution and the Electoral Act after polling a minimum of 25 per cent of votes in 16 of the 21 LGAs of the state.
“In addition, he (Audu) had scored a minimum of 25 per cent of the votes in at least three-third of the Local Government Areas (LGA) of the state (16 out of 21 LGAs). Therefore, he satisfied the provision of the Electoral Act and fulfilled the provision of Section 179 of the constitution for him to be declared as having won the election as prescribed by Section 69 of the Electoral Act,” he said.
Mr Ogunye also stressed that the electoral official “lashed onto one Elections Guideline 2015 that INEC had the ‘Power To Make’ under sections 73 and 153 of the Electoral Act”, insisting that the Election Guideline was a subsidiary instrument which was inferior to the provision of the Electoral Act and the provision of the constitution.
Citing the electoral body’s reason that the margin of votes between late Audu and Governor Idris Wada was not in excess of the number of registered voters, he maintained that the registered voters were not to determine the outcome of elections.
“As we know, there is usually a difference between registered voters and voters who eventually vote at the end of the day and those who voted here were 511,000 while the registered voters in that state were 1,379,000. So you left the accredited voters, you left the actually cancelled votes that was lower in number and was lower than the margin of victory between the two parties and you then went ahead for your registered voters of 49,000.
“They ought to have declared him the winner and allow the constitutional course of Section 181 of the constitution to take effect,” Ogunye said.
Impression Of Conspiracy
He blamed INEC for allowing the substitution of the APC candidate midway, adding that it could create an impression of conspiracy theory.
“We have had a comedy of errors including the latest one in which INEC has issued a directive that it is going to allow a political party to substitute its candidate midstream. Indeed, given the way they have behaved, it is possible that some people whose imagination is fertile can be implying that there was a conspiracy theory that they knew he had died.
“I am saying that it was wrong for INEC to have done that. And having done that, they have created all these problems and they are compounding it by this latest thing they are doing, by saying that they are recommending that the candidate be substituted,” the lawyer said.
Mr Ogunye said he was not in support of the cancellation of the election or the substitution of the candidate but recommended for continuation of the election.
“I am not calling for cancellation, INEC has no power to cancel; I am not calling for substitution, INEC has no power to accept substitution at this stage and the party does not have the power to substitute at this stage.
“I am calling for continuation of the election, conclude it and go to the election tribunal and solve all these problems,” he said.
