Kogi politics: Reconciling nature with law

A person either hates losing enough to change or he hates changing enough to lose – Orrin Woodward. Never had there a time Kogi state been as prominently featured in Nigeria’s political discourse as recently occasioned by Prince Abubakar Audu’s death. By just an act of time, death became a strange phenomenon and trapped democracy […]

A person either hates losing enough to change or he hates changing enough to lose – Orrin Woodward.

Never had there a time Kogi state been as prominently featured in Nigeria’s political discourse as recently occasioned by Prince Abubakar Audu’s death. By just an act of time, death became a strange phenomenon and trapped democracy in the interface between monarchy, dictatorship and wisdom. Law became incompetent as sections 179 (2b) and 181 (1) of the 1999 constitution are indeterminate, and no judicial precedence specific to Audu’s death context could be invoked to reconcile nature with the law and rescue democracy from a suffocating trap.
The ensuing problem, still in contention, is that James Abiodun Faleke of the APC – Yahaya Bello’s Deputy-elect, and Captain Idris Wada (rtd) – PDP flagbearer have filed petitions at the Kogi State Governorship Election Tribunal challenging INEC’s decision in declaring the November 21 2015 election inconclusive, and returning Alhaji Yahaya Bello as the state’s Governor-elect respectively. Faleke’s contention is simply that the election had been won and lost as at 21 November 2015 before Audu’s death, and that he (Faleke) was the right candidate to replace Audu, and be declared by INEC as the Governor-elect because he was Audu’s running mate. In Faleke’s terms, the December 5th supplementary election was unnecessary. As for Captain Wada, Audu’s death meant the death of APC’s winning votes in the state and therefore he, of PDP, who came second after APC in the election, should be returned as Governor-elect.
It is apparent that only a proper invocation of reason and an acceptable interpretation of the law can resolve this issue, and the key questions are: how politically correct is it that APC chose Alhaji Yahaya Bello to replace Prince Abubakar Audu, and how legally sustainable is this replacement and his return as Governor-elect? Not to assume that everyone is aware of the background to this issue, Prince Abubakar Audu won the APC governorship primaries in Kogi state. In the said primaries, Alhaji Yahaya Bello came second. At the point of primary election, James Abiodun Faleke was not an issue because a running mate is not recognized as contestant in primary election.
In other words, Faleke did not contest Kogi governorship primary election, and a running mate becomes Deputy Governor when his Principal wins an election on a party platform and has been so declared by INEC. If this paraphrases the law, it means then that Faleke’s case does not precisely fit, and cannot be approximated into section 181 (1) of the 1999 constitution, which states inter-alia that if a person duly elected as Governor dies before taking and subscribing the Oath of Allegiance and oath of office, the person elected with him as Deputy Governor shall be sworn in as Governor. 
Now to the November 21 election, APC polled 240, 867 as against PDP’s 199, 514 votes, thus leading PDP with 41, 353 votes. At that point, it was only predictable, however confidently, that APC’s Audu was going to win governorship election in Kogi state – no winner had actually been declared by INEC. Seeing that number of registered voters in 91 pollen units across 18 local government areas where election was cancelled was (8, 600) in excess of the 41, 353 votes with which APC was leading PDP, INEC was left with no choice but to declare the election inconclusive in order to clear the doubts created by this gap and avoid problematic disenfranchisement. Indeed there was no way, without supplementary election, INEC was going to convince PDP that APC won the governorship election in the state. In a sense therefore, the supplementary election meant that INEC was also fair in giving Wada and Faleke the opportunity they deserved to be convinced of whatever the final outcome of the election would be, since they both were asking to be declared winner.
With the necessity of supplementary election established, INEC requested APC to provide a replacement for Audu. The constitutional legitimacy of this request and the APC’s right to substitute Audu is to be found in section 33 of Nigeria’s Electoral Act 2010, which authorizes a political party to, as it deems fit, substitute a candidate it had nominated for election if such candidate dies.
If Faleke is counting on 179 (2b) of the 1999 constitution, which states that a candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a state shall be deemed to have been duly elected where, he has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast in each of at least two-thirds of all the local government areas in the state, he should look deeper and see how the section spells difficulty in approximating it to judge the case in his favour.
If on the other hand he is relying on the requirement for full participation in all the stages of election as provided in section 141 of the Electoral Act, he should also know that section 221 of the 1999 constitution provides that the right to vote is the right of a political party. Invariably therefore, APC has participated in all the stages of the processes that led to the election of Alhaji Yahaya Bello as Governor of Kogi state. In the face of this quandary, it is suggestible that Faleke accept reconciliation, and join Bello in moving Kogi state forward.
Dr. Yakubu Ozohu-Suleiman Ph.D.  is Mass Communication Lecturer in Ahmadu Bello University, Zaria     [email protected]