Fayose seeks Judiciary intervention on Kogi election crisis
By; Oladele Adedayo, Ado-Ekiti
Ekiti State Governor, Mr. Ayodele Fayose has called on the judiciary to be bold enough to provide the necessary intervention on the Kogi stalemated election.
Fayose who described the Kogi State election debacle as a show of shame by the Independent National Electoral Commission warned that the electoral umpire must be mindful of the consequences of perpetrating the same electoral abracabra in Bayelsa State.
Special Assistant to the Governor on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, on behalf of the governor in a release issued on Wednesday, said “INEC has created total confusion in Kogi State with the All Progressives Congress (APC) Deputy Governorship candidate, Hon. James Faleke, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP),Governor Idris Wada, governorship candidate of the People for Democratic Change (PDC),Hon. Emmanuel Daikwo and two others now in court challenging the supplementary election scheduled for Saturday.
“APC on its part has presented Yahaya Bello as late Abubakar Audu’s replacement. But Faleke, who should be his running mate, has written to INEC to withdraw his name as Deputy Governorship candidate, and INEC has not told Nigerians how APC will field governorship candidate without a running mate.
“Or has INEC also waved the Electoral Act requirement for a governorship candidate to be nominated with a deputy just because it is the APC that is involved?”
He posited that INEC ought to have approached the Supreme Court for proper interpretation on the relevant laws since the Kogi scenario was not captured in the 1999 Constitution (as amended) and the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).
The governor said; “If INEC could mess up its first assignment under President Muhammadu Buhari-led administration, that Nigerians should get prepared for manipulated electoral processes.”
He said; “INEC must tell Nigerians what it would have done if it was the candidate of any of the 42 political parties (apart from APC) that participated in the election that died while the election was ongoing. Would INEC have resorted to the illegal amendment of the Constitution as it did to protect the interest of the APC or simply go ahead and delete the dead candidate and announce the winner based on votes scored by the remaining candidates?”
Speaking further, Governor Fayose noted that “PDP ruled for 16 years, Nigeria was not thrown into this kind of electoral mess and confusion.
“I imagine if Dr. Goodluck Jonathan had acted this way, will Nigeria be where it is now? Wouldn’t democracy have been scuttled?
“Painfully, many honourable people that supposed to talk have kept quiet, seeming to be enjoying the macabre dance of INEC.”
