KOGI SUPPLEMENTARY ELECTION: APC AND THE SHAPE OF THE BATTLE TO COME

 
Even  after the court ruling that all parties involved in yesterday’s Kogi State supplementary governorship election should participate, tempers continue to  flare within the All Progressives Congress, APC. What does the scenario portend for Nigeria’s emerging democracy? And what
  should  Nigerians expect eventually? Sunday Vanguard in this special piece tries to find an answer.
Now  that the Kogi State supplementary governorship poll has taken place, one thing is  sure: some feathers have been ruffled in the All Progressives Congress, APC.

The party  was plunged into  unprecedented  quagmire  in the political history of Nigeria on the heels of the demise of its gubernatorial candidate in  state, Prince   Abubakar Audu. Audu died on the verge of victory. He polled over 240, 000 votes with his closest challenger and sitting governor of the state, Idris Wada, trailing behind with about 199, 000 votes.
Meanwhile, the election was declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC.

The situation presented a constitutional question as the  statute books  did not envisage a scenario like that. Had Audu been declared winner before his death, his running mate, Hon. James Faleke, in line with Section 181 of the 1999 Constitution, would have been sworn-in, in his stead.

The Section reads: (1) “If a person duly elected as Governor dies before taking and subscribing the Oath of Allegiance and  Oath of  Office, or is unable for any reason whatsoever to be sworn-in, the person elected with him as Deputy Governor shall be sworn-in as Governor and he shall nominate a new Deputy-Governor who shall be appointed by the Governor with the approval of a simple majority of the House of Assembly of the State.

(2) “Where the persons duly elected as Governor and Deputy Governor of a State die or are for any reason unable to assume office before the inauguration of the house of Assembly, the Independent National Electoral Commission shall immediately conduct an election for a Governor and Deputy Governor of the State.”
But the Kogi case was the exact opposite of the scenario painted in the Constitution. Consequently, the development left everyone confused.
A solution came  from the Minister of Justice and Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, Abubakar Malami.

Malami stated that the APC  was at liberty to substitute the deceased candidate. And based on the  pronouncement,  the party went to the drawing board. Its National Chairman, Chief John Oyegun, announced the intention of the party to conduct a fresh primary election to  elect Audu’s replacement.
Meanwhile, the AGF’s position was seen by many as partisan. They reasoned that he would have allowed INEC to ask the court to determine the way forward. Some legal minds and social commentators also saw Malami’s statement as executive malfeasance. But despite that, its preponderance subsisted. And so, APC maintained its position  to find a  substitute.

Oyegun said:  “We lost our candidate for the election in Kogi State on Sunday and, since then, we have concentrated, as a party, on paying him the right respect that is due to a man of his calibre. Let me take this opportunity to express the very sincere condolence of the entire party nationwide to the family of Prince Abubakar Audu and to the people of Kogi  who have just gone through the rigors of an election, indicated their preference for Prince Abubakar Audu, only to lose him at the very moment of victory. We were represented at the funeral by almost the entire executive and that is now behind us. Now, matters of state must now come back to the fore.

“The first point I have to make is that, yes, INEC has made a pronouncement as to the election being inconclusive, but as at this moment, we are yet to get anything in writing from INEC specifying the details of the polling units that are involved and a clear definition of whether we are talking about, in their consideration about registered voters or those with permanent voter  card. But those are matters of details and when we get them from INEC, we will proceed from that point.

“Also,the Chief Law Officer of the federation has made his views known on how things should develop from this stage and he has made a pronouncement to the effect that all that is required is for the APC to go through the process of providing a substitute to our late mourned candidate.
“The implication being that thereafter, the supplement election to conclude the process of electing a new governor for Kogi  will then be put in place. So, as a party, we are going to proceed with the process of organising primary  to provide a substitute candidate for Prince Abubakar Audu. That is the situation at this point in time”.

Back in Kogi, Governor Idris, the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, approached the court, asking to be declared the winner as the person with the highest number of votes after Audu. The reason he advanced was that Audu’s votes died with him. The court, on Friday, threw away his prayers and asked him to go the polls and complain later to the election  petitions  tribunal. But as laughable as the PDP candidate’s claims might sound, Wada may still have a case. The law is silent here. And unless the courts finally say otherwise, Wada  thinks he has a case.

Similarly, Audu’s running mate, Faleke, wrote both INEC and APC, asking to be declared winner of the election. He argued that he ran on a joint ticket with Audu and so, it was unreasonable and out of place for any substitute to inherit the votes by standing election  in only 91 polling units.

The party ignored him and substituted Audu with the second runner-up in the primary election that produced  Audu  as the governorship candidate, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, and subsequently, submitted Faleke’s name as  running mate. But Faleke has since dissociated himself from the arrangement and also approached the court to declare him winner. Like Wada, the court has asked him to participate in the election. It was not clear if he will participate in the poll. But will he later go the tribunals? Would the party remain the same or would there be factions afterwards? Do we have a precedent here? Only the courts would say.

On the day  Bello emerged, Faleke told journalists: “The issue of Kogi State was paramount in the mind of National Leaders and especially the National Chairman of our party that he wanted a solution to it.
“However, we met for about two hours as you have observed and, of course, we discovered that the meeting that we were invited for was just a mere briefing rather than it being where we could have deliberated and resolve the quagmire we find ourselves in, we were only briefed about the position of the party.

Faleke and Bello

“The party told us they had  nominated Alhaji Yahaya Bello. And, of course, we made it clear, as the political family of Prince Abubakar Audu that it is not acceptable and we are not going with it and I personally observed that my name has been submitted to INEC as deputy governorship candidate to pair with Alhaji Yahaya Bello, and I told the National Chairman that ‘I  have submitted a letter this morning distancing myself from that decision’ that on no ground will I want to be associated with the decision of the party to pair me with Alhaji Yahaya Bello because I am already governor-elect.

“I also told him that, as a family, Kogi  State political family, we are not taking part in that election. My name cannot be submitted because I was not even consulted in the first instance.
“The governor-elect cannot  become another deputy governorship candidate.
“I want to make it very clear that Alhaji Yahaya Bello did not take part in all our campaign process and we are only contesting election in 91 polling units out  of 2, 548  polling units and we have made it very clear that, if they go ahead to conduct election because I have pulled out, that election would be challenged in the court of law, it will be null and void.

“We won’t be addressing you today if the party to court  to challenge INEC and Mr. Chairman told us directly that the party will not go to court and since the party is not going to court, we have taken it upon ourselves to challenge the decision”.

Meanwhile, the modalities for the primary never saw the light of day. But a substitute emerged on Monday.
But before then, different interests emerged rooting for the parties involved in the Kogi debacle. Outside Bello and Faleke, a group  called on APC to replace Audu with his first son, Mohammed. The demand raged  until Monday. Bello was picked without a primary election.
Of course, the developments have  created  factions in the party.

Indeed, these are trying times for Nigeria’s jurisprudence. Recall that a similar scenario  arose in 1999 when, after winning the Adamawa State governor election, Alhaji Atiku Abubakar was picked by former President Olusegun Obasanjo as his running mate. There were fireworks  on whether  Atiku’s running mate could just step into his shoes and be sworn-in as governor. The Supreme Court resolved the matter in favour of the running mate, Boni Haruna. This historically gave birth to Section 181 of the 1999 Constitution as amended.
A similar situation has presented itself for the courts to resolve.
In the light of the matter, Sunday Vanguard spoke to  a  Senior Advocate of Nigeria, SAN, Mr. Yusuf Ali, on the implication of the matter for Nigeria’s “nascent” democracy.

“It is a good development as far as I know and I will tell you why. It is from events like this that democracy gets strengthened because the parties concerned  are compelled by circumstances to approach the courts. And when they approach the courts, the courts will be able to give flesh to the bones of our laws and the Constitution. Now, it is clear to everyone that what happened in Kogi is unprecedented in the sense that there is nothing in our law that  envisaged such an occurrence,”Ali said.

“And you recall that in 1999, it was a similar circumstance that gave birth to the Section 181 of the Constitution when, after winning the governorship election of Adamawa State, former President Obasanjo picked Atiku before he was sworn-in to be his running mate. The argument then was like, ‘look, his deputy could not step in’ and so forth. Of course, the Supreme Court resolved it eventually. And so, it was from that decision of the Supreme Court that the Constitution was amended to insert Section 181.

“So, I assure you that after all these hullabaloo about Kogi, the court will make a  pronouncement and will able able to put something in the Constitution that will take care of such an occurrence in  future.
“All living Constitutions, even the American Constitution, circumstances and events will give an opportunity for the courts to intervene. That’s why I don’t like these series of amendment of the Constitution because we have not used this Constitution sufficiently enough. Let use the Constitution as it is. Let matters like this evolve, let’s the courts intervene and then we will see where we will be”.

SOURCE: VANGUARD