Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, the running mate to the late Prince Abubakar Audu, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate in the November 21 governorship election in Kogi State, yesterday declared that he shared a joint ticket with the late Audu and so should be considered the authentic candidate of the APC.
He also urged the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to declare him the winner of the election, and called on the APC to support him to actualise the mandate already given to the party under the joint ticket by distancing itself from the proposed supplementary election.
According to Faleke, any attempt by the electoral body to conduct any supplementary election will amount to a breach of the constitution and he would definitely challenge it in court.
He further asserted that should INEC go ahead to conduct a supplementary election on December 5, he (Faleke), should automatically be the party’s candidate.
Faleke, who stated this in two separate letters he wrote through his lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN), to the INEC chairman, Professor Mahmood Yakubu, and the APC national chairman, Chief John Oyegun, also threatened to drag INEC to court if it goes ahead to conduct the proposed supplementary election on December 5.
In the letter addressed to INEC, with reference number WOL/LG/VOL/ 04/062/2015 and dated November 26, 2015, Olanipekun stated that INEC conducted election to the office of Governor of Kogi State on Saturday, 21, November, 2015 and that the election was held in all 21 local government areas of the state.
The lawyer stated: “To the best of our client’s knowledge, information and belief, the said election was peaceful and also in substantial conformity and compliance with the provisions of the Electoral Act, 2010 (as amended).
“In accordance with the Electoral Act and INEC Guidelines /Regulations, results of the election were declared, first at the polling units level, then at the ward level and later at local government level. As the declarations were being made by INEC, same were also being relayed and announced on radio and television stations (both private and public) as well as the social media. The necessary INEC forms, including but not limited to forms EC8, EC8B, EC89, etc, have also been duly filled, signed and made available to the respective parties who participated at the elections. The front page of each of the national dailies (or most of them) of November 23rd, 2015 highlighted in painstaking details the result of the election, local government area by local government area as released by INEC.
“Despite (1) and (2) supra, INEC curiously announced that the election was inconclusive and that a supplementary election would hold in some polling units on December 5, 2015.”
The legal icon went further to argue that, in law and logic, no new candidate can inherit or be a beneficiary of the votes cast, counted and declared by INEC before that candidate was nominated and purportedly sponsored.
Olanipekun stated further, “Assuming without conceding that INEC is even right to order a supplementary election, the votes already cast, counted and declared on Saturday and Sunday 21st and 22nd November, 2015, were votes for the joint constitutional ticket of Prince Abubakar Audu and our client. Therefore, no new or ‘supplementary candidate can hijack, aggregate, appropriate or inherit the said votes.
“Assuming further, without conceding, that supplementary election in 91 polling units can hold as being suggested by INEC it is our client who should be the automatic candidate of the party, since APC cannot conduct primary election for the supplementary election in 91 polling units.”
He urged INEC to declare his client the winner of the election, saying “any attempt to conduct any supplementary election in any unit whatsoever and howsoever will amount to INEC breaching and flouting the constitution and our client would definitely challenge it.”
In the letter to APC, with reference number WOL/LG/VOL/ 04/061/, with the same date and signed by Olanipekun, contended that INEC had no reason to declare the election inconclusive.
The lawyer also maintained that the reasons given by the electoral body are alien to the constitution and the cancellation of election results cannot be a ground for declaring any election inconclusive.
Olanipekun also argued that INEC had no constitutional or legal power to order the APC to go and conduct a fresh primary election to nominate a candidate for an already concluded election.
