PDP Demands Resignation Of AGF & INEC Chairman Over Kogi Polls.

The Peoples Democratic Party has demanded the resignation of the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, and the Chairman, Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, over the decision to allow the All Progressives Congress to replace its governorship candidate for Kogi State.
The AGF and INEC had in the afternoon given the APC the go ahead to pick a replacement for the late Abubakar Audu, who died on Sunday – a day after contesting in the governorship election. INEC had also decided to hold supplementary election in the 91 units where election was cancelled on Saturday on December 5. However, the PDP condemned and rejected the decision to allow the APC replace its candidate, arguing that the decision was unconstitutional and that INEC was biased.

The National Publicity Secretary of the party, Olisa Metuh, told journalist in Abuja that the party had asked Malami to vacate his office “for harrying and misleading the Independent National Electoral Commission into arriving at an unconstitutional decision to allow the APC to substitute its candidate in the inconclusive Kogi state governorship election.”

Metuh said the party was shocked that INEC could allow itself to succumb to the antics of the APC “by following the unlawful directive of an obviously partisan AGF to substitute a candidate in the middle of the ballot process.” The PDP described the decision of INEC and the AGF as bizarre, saying:


“We are all aware that the two legal documents guiding INEC in the conduct of elections; the Constitution and the Electoral Act, have provisions for electoral exigencies as well as empower the electoral body to fully take responsibility for any of its actions or inaction without undue interference from any quarters whatsoever.

“We are therefore at a loss as to which sections of these two relevant laws, INEC and the AGF relied on in arriving at their bizarre decision to substitute a dead candidate in an ongoing election even after the timelines for such has elapsed under all the rules.”

According to the PDP, the implication of the decision will be that the APC will be fielding two different governorship candidates in the election, meaning that INEC will be transferring votes cast for late Prince Abubakar Audu to another candidate. This, it said, were “scenarios that have no place in the constitution of the land.” It added:


“Whereas the PDP, in honour of the sanctity of human life and respect for the dead, had since Sunday refrained from making comments on the conduct of the election, we can no longer maintain such in the face of the barefaced attack on our democracy.

“This INEC under the leadership of Prof. Mahmood Yakubu has shown itself as partisan, morally bankrupt and obviously incapable of conducting a credible election within our laws.

“In view of the foregoing therefore, the PDP demands an immediate resignation of the INEC chairman, as the nation’s democracy cannot afford to be left in the hands of an electoral umpire that cannot exert its independence.”

Source