Justice Gabriel Kolawole of Federal High Court in Abuja has refused to stop the Independent National Electoral Commission from holding Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Kogi state.
The judge made the ruling today in the five consolidated suits filed by several parties over the 21 November governorship election, which INEC declared as inconclusive, though the All Progressives candidate, Audu
Abubakar was leading his PDP rival by over 41,000 votes. INEC insisted election must be conducted in 91 polling units to declare the winner. Matters were further complicated with the death of Audu and with INEC’s directive to APC to substitute its candidate.
APC did so by submitting Yahaya Bello’s name.
Kolawole struck out all the suits saying that his court has no jurisdiction to entertain the issues brought as they are post election matters.
He therefore ruled that the issues in the different suits should be taken to the Election Petition Tribunal for determination when it is constituted.
The Judge also ruled that the issue of the legality or otherwise of the supplementary poll can also be determined by the Tribunal.
He therefore ruled that the supplementary election should go ahead as planned by INEC.
Legal fireworks were on display on Thursday at the court, presided over by Justice Gabriel Kolawole as different parties in the five suits filed to challenge the INEC on the
21 November, 2015 Kogi State governorship election engaged one another.
However, the proceedings got more interesting when Chief Wole Olanipekun (SAN) joined to argue the case of the deputy governorship candidate of the All
Progressives Congress, James Abiodun Faleke, who is asking INEC to declare him the winner of the poll, INEC declared inconclusive.
In the suit, Faleke argued that the INEC decision was wrong.
He therefore asked the court to among others compel INEC to declare his joint ticket with the late Abubakar Audu winner of the election and to restrain it (INEC) from proceeding with its planned supplementary election.
In the second suit, Governor Idris Wada who is also the candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party asked the court to compel INEC to declare him winner of the election, on the ground that he is the only surviving candidate in the election who scored the second highest votes after the deceased candidate of the APC.
The third suit was filed by Emanuel Daiko, who claimed to have contested the election as a candidate of the People for Democratic Change (PDC) and wants the court to among others hold the supplementary election as illegal, prevent APC from substituting its deceased candidate and to prevent APC from participating in the election on the ground that it no longer has a candidate.
In the fourth suit, Raphael Igbokwe a member of the House of Representatives from Imo State and Stephen Wada Omaye want the court to annul the November 21 election and conduct a fresh one. It has INEC and APC as defendants.
*TheNews
