The deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the November 21 election in Kogi State, Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, has vowed not to betray the late Prince Abubakar Audu by surrendering their joint victory.
He has also warned his party and the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) not to do anything that will compromise his mandate as the deputy governor-elect.
In two letters written through his counsel Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) to INEC and the APC yesterday, Faleke informed both parties of the court case he instituted.
He told the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, that he was “not ready or prepared to negotiate, compromise, surrender, mortgage or part, in any way whatsoever, with the mandate already given to the said joint ticket by the electorate of Kogi State.”
He again pleaded with the APC not to submit his name “as an associate or running mate to any person or newcomer into the supplementary election which INEC is proposing to hold in 91 polling units on December 5, 2015.”
The 91 polling units, Faleke emphasised, have only 25,000 prospective voters with Permanent Voter’ Cards (PVCs) and that INEC’s declaration of the election as inconclusive was “a mystery.”
Faleke told the APC leadership that “as a man of conscience” he did not want to betray the late Audu by assigning their joint mandate to any person, “particularly Mr. Yahaya Bello, who engaged the late Prince Abubakar Audu in a war of attrition throughout the primary election and continued to mount a campaign against him till he passed on.”
He claimed that Bello jumped ship after losing out at the party’s primary election.
“Immediately after the primary election was conducted, Mr. Yahaya Bello defected from the APC to the Social Democratic Party (SDP),” Faleke alleged.
Bello, he added, did not participate in the electioneering which he and the late Audu embarked on “throughout Kogi State”.
Faleke said Bello neither contributed “a dime to the electioneering” of the Audu /Faleke ticket and “did not make himself available for any assistance to the APC in the state”.
He claimed that Bello “indeed campaigned and worked against the APC, to the knowledge of all and sundry”, observing that the party lost in Bello’s polling unit, ward and local government.
Faleke was also of the view that “the fielding of Bello by the APC is not just undemocratic, unconscionable, unjust and unfair, but also against the ethics, robbing Prince Abubakar Audu to pay Mr. Yahaya Bello”.
“The APC is not merely sponsoring Mr. Yahaya Bello to reap from where he did not sow, but also to harvest from where he stoically prevented the sowing or planting,” he added.
He urged his party to cooperate with him “and avoid a situation where, by some acts of omission or commission, the APC might wittingly or unwittingly fritter the mandate given to it by the electorate of Kogi State.
In the letter to the Chairman of INEC, Faleke said the commission had made “a cocktail of errors and catalogue of improprieties” regarding Kogi governorship election.
He said INEC’s decision to term the election as inconclusive and the directive to the APC to replace the late Audu through a supplementary election was “glaringly wrong”.
Faleke told the commission that he was not “in anyway whatsoever and howsoever relinquishing, compromising, surrendering or parting with the mandate freely given to the joint ticket of Prince Abubakar Audu” and himself.
He emphasised that he was ready to defend and protect the said election and he would not run as associate or deputy to any person or candidate presented or to be presented to INEC by the APC.
Relying on Section 187(1) of the Constitution, he argued that a gubernatorial candidate could not be validly nominated without a running mate and urged INEC to renounce its declaration that the election was inconclusive.