Court of Appeal, Abuja division, has affirmed the election of Yahaya Bello as the duly elected governor of Kogi State on the platform of the All Progressives Congress (APC).
The appellate court dismissed the appeal filed by James Faleke, a member of the House of Representatives and a deputy governorship candidate under APC for lacking in merit.
In a unanimous judgment delivered by Justice Jummai Hanatu-Sankey, the court held that Yahaya Bello was properly nominated by his party, the APC, in compliance with Section 33 of the Electoral Act 2010, following the death of Abubakar Audu who was the initial candidate of the party at the poll.
The appellate court held that the issues raised by Faleke in his petition challenging the nomination of Yahaya Bello as successor to the late Audu during the supplementary election of December 6, 2015, was an internal affairs of the party and which the party in the substitution exercised.
Justice Sankey said the petition of Faleke was fallacious and ought not to have been entertained in court in the first instance, because of the failure of Faleke to join the APC as a defendant in the matter having been the party that carried out the substitution complained against by Faleke.
The court held that the failure of Faleke to join APC in his petition was fatal to his case and that the case cannot stand in the face of law in the absence of the APC, which carried out the substitution.
The appellate court also said that Faleke who was nominated as running mate to late Audu after the primary election of APC for candidate nomination had been concluded, cannot turn around to claim to be the candidate of the party or deemed to have been elected as Kogi State governor since he did not participate in the primaries as required by law.
The court further averred that the claim of Faleke that the people of Kogi voted for late Audu and himself had no place in law, because “Section 122 of the Constitution makes it clear that it is political party that can canvas for votes and be voted for,” adding that, in the instant case, it was APC that was voted for by the people and that it was the candidate sponsored by the party that could claim the votes.
Justice Sankey held that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) was right in calling for substitution of the late Audu since doing so was allowed under Section 33 of the Electoral Act 2010.
It is apt to conclude that Faleke did not qualify to step into the shoes of the late Audu because he (Faleke) did not participate in the APC primary election as required by law and therefore has no locus standi to claim to have been deemed elected the governor, when he was not nominated as a candidate by his party.
Meanwhile in another judgment, the court in majority decision of four justices to one held that former governor of Kogi State, Idris Wada, lacked the locus standi to complain against the nomination of Bello as candidate of the APC in a supplementary election of December 2015, on the ground that he was not a member of the APC and did not participate in the APC primary election.
The court said Section 33 of the Electoral Act permitted the APC to make the substitution of Bello following the death of Audu.
But in a dissenting judgment, a member of the panel, Justice Ita George Mbaba disagreed with the declaration of Yahaya Bello as a duly elected governor of Kogi State.
He said the INEC violated Section 141 of the Electoral Act in declaring Yahaya Bello as the elected governor of Kogi.
According to Justice Mbaba, Section 141 of the Electoral Act prescribes that no person shall be declared a governor unless such a person has participated in all the stages of the election.
In the instant case, Justice Mbaba said apart from participating in the primary election, there was no evidence that Yahaya Bello participated in all other stages of the election before his purported declaration by INEC as a governor.
He therefore voided the certificate of return issued to Bello by INEC and also set aside the tribunal judgment, which declared Yahaya Bello as Kogi State governor.
