The decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission to declare the last Saturday’s Kogi Governorship election inconclusive has drawn the ire of the Peoples Democratic Party which has vowed to challenge the decision in court.
INEC had on Tuesday decided to allow the APC replace its candidate, Abubakar Audu, who died while the results were been counted, him with another candidate, adding that it would hold the supplementary election on December 5.
However, the PDP, after its National Caucus meeting in Abuja on Wednesday night, said INEC’s decision was wrong and called on the commission to declare its candidate, Capt Idris Wada (retd.) as the winner of the November 21 governorship election.
It said this should be so because the APC had legally crashed out of the election, following the demise of Audu.
The communique of the meeting, read to journalists on Thursday by the party’s national publicity secretary, Olisa Metuh, said the action of INEC and the APC on the election was illegal.
“In order to save the nation’s democracy from imminent collapse, the PDP as a critical stakeholder will immediately challenge this unlawful and unconstitutional decision by INEC in the court.
“With the death of its candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu, the APC has legally crashed out of the governorship race as no known law or constitutional provision allows the substituting of candidates, once the ballot process has commenced.
“With the unfortunate death of Prince Abubakar Audu, the APC has no valid candidate in the election, leaving INEC with no other lawful option than to declare the PDP candidate, Capt. Idris Wada as the winner of the election,” the communique said.
PDP also alleged that the leadership of INEC under the Chairmanship of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu had demonstrated that it was incapable of neutrality and as such could not be vested with the conduct of the Kogi governorship supplementary election as well as the December 5, 2015, Bayelsa governorship election.
“We completely reject the decision of INEC in yielding to the unlawful prompting of a clearly partisan Attorney General of the Federation, Mallam Abubakar Malami, to allow APC to substitute a candidate in the middle of an election, even when such has no place in the Constitution and the Electoral Act.
“(PDP) Notes that the combine reading of the provisions of the Constitution and Electoral Act do not in any way whatsoever support the substitution of candidates for election in the middle of the ballot process.
“(PDP) Notes that if APC is allowed to substitute its original candidate, then the party would have fielded two separate candidates in the same election, a scenario that is completely alien to our electoral laws and to any known democratic norms and practice world-over.”
The communique added that the caucus has demanded the immediate resignation of the chairman and all national commissioners of INEC to pave the way for a new non-partisan commission to conduct the forth-coming elections.
“Caucus also demands the immediate resignation of the AGF, Malami for deliberately misleading INEC into arriving at the unconstitutional decision of allowing APC to substitute its candidate in the inconclusive election.
“Caucus also alerts that the AGF, INEC and APC are creating a scenario where a loser in a primary will patiently wait for the winning candidate to finish election and then have him either poisoned or assassinated before the final collation of results.
“Caucus calls on the international community to prevail on the APC government to stop this ceaseless assault on our democracy,” the communique further said.
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