Kogi State Governor, Idris Wada and his party, the Peoples Democratic Party, have asked a Federal High Court in Abuja to declare them the winner of the November 21, 2015 gubernatorial election.
In a suit filed on Friday, the plaintiffs argued that in view of the death of the All Progressives Congress candidate, Abubukar Audu, Wada should be declared the winner because he is the surviving candidate with the majority of lawful votes cast during the polls.
Independent National Electoral Commission, the Attorney-General of the Federation and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the APC were listed as respondents to the suit.
In another separate application, the plaintiffs asked the court to restrain INEC from conducting the supplementary election scheduled for December 5.
The plaintiffs their counsel, Chris Uche (SAN) also asked the court to issue an order of injunction restraining the APC from organising or holding a fresh primary for the purpose of substituting its candidate ahead of the supplementary or other election for the 2015 Kogi State governorship election.
They also asked the court to declare that the APC could not lawfully nominate a candidate for the supplementary governorship election slated for December 5 without a valid and legally cognisable primary election of the APC, conducted within the mandatory timeliness specified by the Electoral Act.
They asked the court to declare that, according “to the provisions of Section 141 of the Electoral Act, 2010, votes scored by a candidate who died during an election cannot be inherited by or transferred to a person who was not a candidate at the said election and who did not participate in all stages of such election, for the purpose of concluding such election.”
In a 36-paragraph affidavit, PDP State Collation Agent for the governorship election, Mr. Joe Agada, stated in part, “That with the demise of the APC’s candidate, the two leading candidates are Wada with 199,514 votes and that of the Labour Party with 8, 756 votes.
“That I know as a fact that INEC on this basis ought to declare Wada the winner of the governorship election of November 21, 2015, being the only surviving candidate with the highest number of votes and scoring 25 per cent of the votes in all the Local Government Areas of the State.”
The case has not been assigned to a judge