Last week, the youthful Governor of Kogi State, Yahaya Bello began a Hercules-like triumph in the series of judicial mines placed to test his validity as the number one citizen of the Confluence State. For some, the governor’s serial victory at the Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal where his major petitioners suffered bloody noses is confirmation of Dino Melaye’s hypothesis of Divine involvement. At the inauguration of Bello on January 27 in Lokoja, the senator representing Kogi West had pulled a rude joke that though Kogi people voted for another candidate, God overruled them and voted for Bello. Thus, as Justice Halima, who claimed to be under malaria parasite’s attack threw out the petitions one after the other, many simple folks were convinced that God must have indeed, voted for Bello who was not even a candidate in the November 21, 2015 election. However, for others, the tribunal judgements are an added spice to Kogi’s reputation as a land where absurdities are normal – a theatre where nothing is impossible.
They may be right. After all, the State has attained notorietyas the experimental guinea-pig for modern Nigerian politics and law. We do not need to go far to provide proofs of this fame. It is a pioneer on many fronts: First state where a governorship election was annulled by a tribunal and upheld by an Appeal Court. The first to be ruled by an Acting Governor; first to go through a re-run poll; it holds the record as the only state where two persons were sworn into office one as governor and the other as acting governor the same day.
Even as you read this, at least two persons are still laying claims to the speakership of the state House of Assembly! MomohJimohLawal supported by 14 of his colleagues and armed with a High Court judgement insists he is the Speaker. But Imam Alfa, leading a group of five members is the one recognized as Speaker by the executive. And the mother of all oddities: the first state to produce a governor from supplementary election- a strange phenomenon under the Nigerian law and customs.
The controversial and supplementary nature of the election that produced Bello as governor has been the bane of his mandate. The Kogi governorship poll held November 21 last year. It was however declared inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC. As the votes poured in, and collation got underway, it was clear that Prince AbubakarAudu, then candidate of the All Progressives Congress APC and his running mate, James AbiodunFaleke were coasting to victory. They were leading their closest rivals, incumbent Governor Idris Wada and Deputy Yomi Awoniyi of the People’s Democratic Party PDP with about 41,000 votes having polled a salivating 240,000 votes to Wada’s 199,000 votes. However, a legal technicality prevented the victory from being announced on the spot.
Some 49,000 votes, a little more than the margin of defeat were still outstanding. The Electoral Act, which moderates the conduct of all elections into public offices in Nigeria makes it mandatory that the yet to participate 49,000 registered voters must not be disenfranchised. Consequently, the Returning Officer invoked this legal provision and declared the election inconclusive. A new date for the conclusion was yet to be announced when news of Audu’s death filtered in. The APC, the state under which the late Prince was winning the election, came in to claim all the votes leaving none for his rattled political patrimony.
From a shaky start, the party went to its archive and awarded the disputed votes to Bello who came second in the primary that produced the fallen Audu. Fortunately, it had an ally in a restive and partisan Attorney General and Minister of Justice who admonished the party to bring a new candidate in the middle of an election. The supplementary poll that held on Saturday December 5, 2015 was a walk-over for Bello. He shored up the APC total votes to about 247,000 with his 6,000 supplementary votes and thus became the first person in humanity to win public office on the strength of a make-up election. When he was inaugurated in January, he did not have a deputy governor as Faleke who was retained on the INEC documents as running mate vehemently rejected the offer. He then approached the tribunal to agitate for his declaration as governor.
It then appeared that Bello’s governorship was imperiled from the start. Faleke felt terribly short changed by his party and INEC. He reasoned that Audu had already won the election before he died; He urged the tribunal to compel INEC to declare him as winner since he was on a ‘joint ticket’ with Audu. In his opinion, the supplementary election was completely unnecessary and an illegality. The simple question he wanted the tribunal to answer was whether INEC was right in declaring the November 21 election inconclusive. The tribunal failed to answer that question but instead threw out his case for lack of merit.
Tribunal chairman Justice Halima Mohammed held that since Faleke did not participate in every stage of the election, he lacked locus standi to bring the petition before it. It resolved that since the. election was declared inconclusive, the right to challenge its outcome had not accrued to Faleke. The tribunal declined jurisdiction to question the party’s internal process that led to the nomination for Audu’s replacement. It appeared that the tribunal spoke from both sides of the mouth. The question of what constitute ‘every stage’ of the election was left dangling. If Faleke was dismissed for not participating in every stage of the election, then what do we say about Bello? A man who did not participate in campaigns and the general election can hardly be said to have fared better under the law.
After summarily dismissing Faleke’s case in the manner described above, the tribunal landed its hammer on its next victim, former Governor Wada of the PDP. Wada’s case was multi-faceted. He opined that since Audu died in the middle of a general election and not primary, the period allowed by law for the substitution of a candidate had elapsed. He argued that Bello who was used to replace Audu could not inherit the votes of a dead person. He alleged further that Bello was not even qualified to contest the election because he was not a registered voter in Kogi State and he went into the supplementary election without running mate. Finally, he brought a forensic report and expert to show that the election was rigged in favour of the APC. Again, his application was dismissed for lack of merit.
Although Justice Halima graciously granted him locus standi, she said the load of scanned electoral materials brought by the forensic expert and which she had earlier admitted or marked as exhibit were ‘dumped’ on the tribunal. The tribunal was silent on Bello’s invalid voter’s card and held that he did not contest the December 5 supplementary poll without a running mate. She stunned listeners when she declared that Faleke who she declined locus standi a day before, was also Bello’s running mate for the make-up election! The tribunal held that the provisions of the law as it relates to substitution of candidate by a political party become invalid in an inconclusive election. The Wada case still left many unanswered questions. Can votes of a corpse be transferred to the living or they die with him? Between a party and a candidate, who own the votes cast in an election? What is the life span of the result of a primary election? Can a material presented and accepted as exhibit be said to have been dumped on a court?
For now, Bello is salivating his victory and swimming in the euphoria of the moment. Whereas his admirers see the hands of God in his tribunal victories describing them as ‘legal wonders’, his traducers see them as ‘legal blunders’. Will the Kogi Governor truly be a cat with nine lives or just a flash in the pan? Only time and perhaps, the Supreme Court will tell. The good people of Kogi State and indeed all well-meaning Nigerians are eagerly waiting to see how this landmark riddle will enrich our jurisprudence.
- Elesho is a public affairs analyst.
