WHY IS NO ONE CHALLENGING INEC ON KOGI ELECTIONS?

I am surprised that almost a month after its announcement, no one is challenging INEC on the legality of the declaration of Yahaya Bello as the winner of the last Kogi Gubernatorial elections. It’s as if we have come to a point where we are tired of fighting for anything outside our own individual rights.

Of course, Chief James Faleke continues to insist he should be governor, but with all due respect, I completely disagree with him. He has no locus standi to even insist. He never ran for an election; he was picked as running mate. His principal had not duly been declared as the elected governor before his unfortunate demise. If he had, then he would have been right to say that he should governor elect, but in this case, as the lawyers would say, you cannot build something on nothing.

But what about the rest of us? What about the civil societies? What about the constitutional lawyers? Oh, I miss Chief Gani Fawehimi! I miss him so much! I miss Beko Ransome Kuti; I miss Chief Alao Aka Bashorun also. These people would have already started a legal battle in court, and in the case of Beko, we would have been placarding INEC since that announcement. How are the mighty fallen? The weapons of warfare perished!

I am not a trained lawyer, but most of law is common sense anyway! I argue here that there is no constitution basis for this decision. I know the constitution does not and reasonably cannot provide for every possible outcome, but this is a dangerous precedence that we have allowed INEC to set.

In a democracy, there should be no shortcut to equity and fairness. We should rather spend billions more to get the right person in place in a valid election, rather than hastily declaring a farce for an election.

The proper thing was for the entire election to have been cancelled. The APC should hold another primaries which will probably throw up a different dynamics and possibly a different candidate other than Alhaji Bello. Who is to say that in the absence of Chief Audu, his followers would have given their votes to Alhaji Bello? They could have given it to Chief James Faleke, or even an obscure contender!

So after the primaries, Captain Wada would now have gone square with whoever emerges from APC. Again, without Chief Wada in contention, would Captain Wada have lost at the polling units where he lost? We would not know, unless we reset the counter and start afresh.

So from a knowledgeable layman’s view, the decision to put forward Alhaji Bello to finish the contest that Alhaji Audu started and almost won was not right, neither is his subsequent declaration as government properly founded on law and equity. This is the reason why I urge those who love the law and our democracy to challenge the matter today!