According to the Constitution, I am Governor – James Faleke

The Deputy Governorship candidate for the All Progressives Congress at the Kogi election, James Faleke, has written again to the national chairman of the party, John Oyegun, insisting that he’s the governor-elect and should be declared accordingly.

INEC had declared the election conducted on Saturday, November 21 inconclusive, in which Faleke ran as the deputy for the late Prince Audu Abubakar.

The APC candidate died a week ago on November 22 after the election was declared inconclusive leading the party to begin the process of selecting a new candidate as directed by INEC.

In the ensuing conundrum, the APC nominated the deceased’s son Mohammed Audu as the new candidate while opposition, the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, said its candidate, incumbent Idris Wada, should be declared governor.

In his first letter to INEC on Wednesday, November 25, James Faleke said he was the real beneficiary of the votes cast and requested INEC declare him as governor-elect.

In a second letter to Oyegun through his lawyer, Wole Olanipekun, the former lawmaker again mentioned the danger of bending over to INEC’s directive of selecting a fresh candidate.

Faleke said INEC and all parties to the election had already reached a point of no return, hence, holding a supplementary primary to produce a candidate for a supplementary election in the remaining 91 polling units can only produce a supplementary governor for the state.
Faleke said the total number of outstanding votes in the remaining 91 polling units are not over 25, 000 and that even if all the voters vote for the new candidate, he would only have the votes of 91 polling units and not the one cast before.

He cited section 197(2) (b) of the 1999 Constitution which states that “(2) A candidate for an election to the office of Governor of a State shall be deemed to have been duly elected where there being two or more candidates. (b) He has not less than one-quarter of all the votes cast of at least two-thirds of all the local government areas of the state”.
Faleke also recalled that in 1999, when the governor-elect of Adamawa state, Atiku Abubakar, became Vice President, INEC directed a rerun to produce a fresh governor.
But he said, the PDP challenged the decision saying Mr. Atiku’s deputy, Boni Haruna, should automatically be made governor. He said the legal battle that ensued got to the Supreme Court which upheld the position of the PDP allowing Mr. Haruna to serve as governor and even winning re-election.

Faleke reminded Oyegun of how some prominent members of the APC in connivance with some “decent forces” in the nation, brandishing the “doctrine of necessity”, supported the course of then Vice President Goodluck Jonathan to be appointed acting president when the president at the time, Umaru Yar’adua, was terminally ill.

“If we could rely on the ‘doctrine of necessity’ and maximally utilize same to make Vice President Goodluck Jonathan the sitting president, it then goes without saying that both INEC and APC must submit themselves to the doctrine of constitutional imperative and /or necessity to allow our client to be governor-elect of Kogi state.”