The crisis rocking the Kogi State polity has gathered more steam as Abiodun Faleke, who was the running mate of late Prince Audu Abubakar has moved against the nomination of Alhaji Yahaya Bello as replacement for the late politician.
Hon. James Abiodun Faleke
The late Audu’s running mate in the November 21 election, James Abiodun Faleke, has refused to be running mate to Alhaji Yahaya Bello, who has been named the party’s candidate for the supplementary election on Saturday.
Faleke has maintained that he should be declared governor-elect on the APC platform.
In a letter to APC National Chairman Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, Faleke dissociated himself from the supplementary poll, which he insisted was unnecessary since the November 21 governorship election produced the candidates of the APC as clear winners.
He said rather than substitute its late standard bearer at the governorship election for the purpose of a supplementary election, the party ought to have urged the electoral umpire to declare it the winner of the poll since the expected results from the scheduled election would be inconsequential.
In the 91 units, there are 49,000 registered would-be voters. Of the lot, only 25,000 have voter cards. The APC is leading by 41,000 votes.
“Please take this letter as confirmation to dissociate myself from the unusual and strange supplementary nomination of my humble self as running mate to Alhaji Yahaya Bello, this also serves as a notice of rejection of the purported and illegal nomination of myself as running mate to Alhaji Yahaya Bello,” Faleke wrote in the letter to Odigie-Oyegun.
He said it would amount to a betrayal of trust and injustice on the part of the party to pick Bello who, according to him, joined forces with the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) against the APC during the election, as the inheritor of all the late Audu and himself put into the campaigns to ensure victory for the APC.
Faleke slammed the APC for allegedly attempting to shave his head behind him, claiming that no one consulted him before his name was forwarded as running mate to Bello.
The letter reads: “I wish to put it on record that I was neither consulted by anybody before my name was submitted as running mate to a man who has since the conduct of primaries, abandoned the party, took the party to court, worked for the PDP, thereby causing our party to lose his polling unit 80 votes to his ally party PDPs 116, repeating same feat at the Ward level with APC scoring 1,146 to PDP’s 2,058.
“While it is true that the said Alhaji Yahaya Bello participated in our party primaries, its trite that party primaries are conducted to produce a candidate and once a candidate is produced, the congress, being an ad-hoc tool for that purpose, should automatically extinguish.
“It is clear from this injustice, that our party is on the path of rewarding disloyalty and discourage loyalty through this act of impunity for which we all fought the PDP.
“It may also interest you Mr. Chairman Sir, that the said Yahaya Bello, since the conduct of the primaries, had been aloof from party activities as it is on record that he did not attend a single meeting or campaign rally of the party.
“Mr. Chairman Sir, I am sure that it is neither in your interest, nor that of the party in particular and the public in general to lord an illegality on the people of Kogi State.
“Please, take note that I am not interested in surrendering the mandate the people of Kogi State bestowed on the Audu/Faleke joint ticket at the November 21 poll as I remain the governor-elect.
“I believe in the leadership of our great party to resolve this in the shortest possible time, failure upon which I shall be forced to seek redress in the court of law.”
In his latest letter, Faleke restated his position as contained in two letters last Thursday from his counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun to the APC national chairman and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu.
In all the letters, Faleke mainted that the idea of a supplementary election should not arise because the APC had already won the governorship slot by polling 240, 867 to beat Governor Idris Wada of the PDP who polled 199, 514.