The Peoples Democratic Party has said the declaration of the All
Progressive Congress’ Yahaya Bello as governor-elect of Kogi State is a
waste of time. This comes after INEC had declared Bello as winner of the governorship
election.
The National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Chief Olisa Metuh,
in a
statement in Abuja on Sunday said,
“The action of INEC in trying to transfer the votes earlier garnered by the dead APC candidate, Prince Audu Abubakar, to another individual is completely impractical and alien to the nation’s Constitution and the Electoral Act.
“The declaration by INEC that Bello polled the highest number of votes is an embarrassing travesty of the nation’s democracy and electoral process.“Not only that this individual is not in anyway a valid candidate in the election, he also did not score the overall votes declared against his name by INEC and cannot be declared winner under any circumstance within the provisions of our laws.It is therefore unfortunate that INEC disregarded the provisions of the Constitution and the Electoral Act, which left it with no other legitimate option than to declare Governor Idris Wada the governor-elect,
“Instead, it went ahead to preside over a charade, for which it is now attempting to illicitly handover the vote cast for a dead man to another person, who did not participate in the overall election.”
Metuh called on APC and Bello to know that Wada remains “validly
elected within the dictates of our laws under the circumstance.”
He appealed to members of the PDP and its supporters to remain calm,
saying the law will soon take the center stage to “right the wrong
created by INEC and declare Wada as the governor.”
