Abuja – A legal practitioner, Mr Greg Anthony, has faulted the declaration of Alhaji Yahaya Bello of the All progressives Congress (APC) as the winner of the Kogi governorship election.
Anthony told the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) in Abuja on Sunday that the process through which a party’s flag bearer should emerge was circumvented.
Anthony said that in spite of the constitutional gaps, it was not proper to give the votes belonging to James Falake to a man who didn’t work for it.
He argued that only Falake, who was running mate to the late Abubakar Audu, had claim to the votes.
“Some people voted for the APC in the exercise because Falake was in the race together with Audu.
“Why is it then a joint ticket? I want to believe the governorship election tribunal should address the anomalies.
“This election cannot be upheld by any court of competent jurisdiction or even the tribunal,’’ he said.
According to the result announced by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) after Saturday’s supplementary poll, the APC candidate polled a total of 247,752.
It showed that APC defeated the incumbent governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Mr Idris Wada, who polled 208,877 votes.
According to the Chief Returning Officer for the poll, Prof. Emmanuel Kucha, the APC polled 6885 votes against the PDP’s 5363 in Saturday’s supplementary poll.
“Yahaya Bello, having polled the highest number of votes and satisfied the law is hereby returned elected,’’ he had declared.
The APC picked Bello as its new candidate for the supplementary poll after the death of Audu, who was its original flag bearer.
