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Kogi Polls: PDP Reacts to Replacement of APC's Candidate, See the Moves the Party is Making Against INEC
Posted by Lolade on Wed 25th Nov, 2015 - tori.ngThe decision of INEC to conduct a supplementary gubernatorial election in Kogi State has sent tension through the nation's polity as the Peoples Democratic Party have aired its displeasure.
The Peoples Democratic Party has expressed displeasure over the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission to hold a rerun of the gubernatorial election in Kogi State.
The electoral umpire finally fixed December 5, 2015 as official date for the conduct of supplementary election for the inconclusive Kogi State governorship poll held last weekend.
In a press statement from the headquarters of INEC signed by the Honourable Secretary of the electoral commission, Barrister Augusta Ogakwu, the commission equally ordered the All Progressive Congress (APC) to promptly fill the vacancy created by the demise of the party’s candidate for the election, Prince Abubakar Audu.
The INEC statement was immediately strongly condemned by the PDP in Lokoja. The party leaders hurried into a meeting to review the situation.
At the end of their meeting, yesterday evening, party leaders refused to comment, saying the party in Abuja would speak for them.
The party, reacting through its National Publicity Secretary, Chief Olisa Metuh in a statement issued in Abuja demanded the resignation of Malami as Minister of Justice and Prof. Mahmud Yakubu as INEC chairman as the party alleged a conspiracy between the two to derail the democratic enterprise.
“The party is shocked that INEC, a supposedly independent electoral umpire could allow itself to succumb to the antics of the APC by following the unlawful directive of an obviously partisan AGF to substitute a candidate in the middle of the ballot process.
"We are all aware that the two legal documents guiding INEC in the conduct of elections; the Constitution and the Electoral Act, have provisions for electoral exigencies as well as empower the electoral body to fully take responsibility for any of its actions or inaction without undue interference from any quarters whatsoever."
“We are, therefore, at a loss as to which sections of these two relevant laws, INEC and the AGF relied on in arriving at their bizarre decision to substitute a dead candidate in an on-going election even after the timelines for such has elapsed under all the rules.
"INEC as a statutory body has the full complements of technical hands in its legal department to advise it appropriately and we wonder why it had to wait for directives from the AGF, an external party, if not for partisan and subjective interest."
"Consequently, the PDP rejects in its entirety, this brazen move by the APC and INEC to circumvent the laws and ambush the yet-to-be concluded election by introducing a practice that is completely alien to the constitution and the electoral act."
“The clear implication of this action of the AGF and INEC is that the APC would be fielding two different governorship candidates in the on-going Kogi election, meaning that INEC would be transferring votes cast for late Prince Abubakar Audu to another candidate, scenarios that have no place in the constitution of the land.
“Whereas the PDP, in honour of the sanctity of human life and respect for the dead, had since Sunday refrained from making comments on the conduct of the election, we can no longer maintain such in the face of the bare-faced attack on our democracy.
“This INEC under the leadership of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has shown itself as partisan, morally bankrupt and obviously incapable of conducting a credible election within our laws.
“In view of the foregoing, therefore, the PDP demands an immediate resignation of the INEC chairman, as the nation’s democracy cannot afford to be left in the hands of an electoral umpire that cannot exert its independence and the sanctity of the electoral process.
“In view of the developments regarding Kogi Governorship election, the National Working Committee of the PDP has summoned an emergency National Caucus meeting of the party on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 (today), to take a decision on this obvious threat to our democracy."
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