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Concern is mounting over how the crisis precipitated by the sudden death of the APC candidate in the stalemated Kogi governorship poll, Prince Abubakar Audu would be resolved.
In the latest development, Hon. James Faleke, the running mate to late Abubakar Audus in last Saturday’s election has written to the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, asking the commission to declare him the governor-elect of the state.
The lawmaker who presently represents Ikeja Federal Constituency of Lagos State in the Federal House of Representatives is arguing that under Section 187 of the 1999 Constitution, he has already been duly elected as deputy governor of Kogi State, inferring that the logically next step is for the commission to ensure that he gets to replace the deceased as the duly elected governor of the state.
“In law and logic, no new candidate can inherit or be a beneficiary of the votes already cast, counted and declared by INEC before that candidate was nominated and purportedly sponsored,” Faleke wrote to the commission through his counsel, Wole Olanipekun. SAN.
“Assuming without conceding that INEC is even right to order a supplementary election, the votes already cast, counted and declared on Saturday, 25th 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.”
Faleke’s claim is now pitching him against a group of elders from the Kogi East Senatorial District who rose from a meeting yesterday, endorsing ustapha Audu, son of the late Audu to take up the position vacated by his father in the supplementary polls that INEC had already called for.
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