The Peoples Democratic Party has said the declaration of the All Progressive Congress’ Yahaya Bello as governor-elect of Kogi State is a waste of time, resources and ridiculous shadow-chasing.

 

INEC had declared Bello as winner of the governorship election early this morning, saying he had satisfied the requirement of the law and scored the majority votes.

However, the PDP alleged that the INEC, in the bid to satisfy the President Muhammadu Buhari-led APC Federal Government, had succeeded in making a mockery of itself and the entire electoral process, by trying to install an individual who it said, was not a valid candidate for the election.

 

The party also alleged that Bello merely scored, under his name, a paltry 6885 vote in the supplementary election as against the 204,877 votes polled by the PDP candidate, Governor Idris Wada in the overall election. 

The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh, in a statement in Abuja on Sunday said, “The action of INEC in trying to transfer the votes earlier garnered by the dead APC candidate, Prince Audu Abubakar, to another individual is completely impractical and alien to the nation’s Constitution and the Electoral Act.

“The declaration by INEC that Bello polled the highest number of votes is an embarrassing travesty of the nation’s democracy and electoral process.

 

“Not only that this individual is not in anyway a valid candidate in the election, he also did not score the overall votes declared against his name by INEC and cannot be declared winner under any circumstance within the provisions of our laws.” 

Metuh said that the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act are clear to the effect that with the unfortunate death of Audu before the conclusion of the election, and the fact that the laws do not permit the replacement of candidates once the balloting has commenced, the APC crashed out of the race, leaving the PDP candidate, Governor Idris Wada as the clear winner.

 

“It is therefore unfortunate that INEC disregarded the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, which left it with no other legitimate option than to declare Governor Idris Wada the governor-elect,” he added.

 

“Instead, it went ahead to preside over a charade, for which it is now attempting to illicitly handover the vote cast for a dead man to another person, who did not participate in the overall election.”

 

Metuh called on APC and Bello to know that Wada remains “validly elected within the dictates of our laws under the circumstance.”

He appealed to members of the PDP and its supporters to remain calm, saying the law will soon take the center stage to “right the wrong created by INEC and declare Wada as the governor.”

-Punch