Kogi Election, Abacha’s Loot Dominate Newspapers Front Page

The focus of all newspapers in Nigeria today, November 30, is on the replacement of the Kogi state gubernatorial candidate of the All Progressive Congress, Abubakar Audu.

Guardian newspaper

Daily Sun reports that there is a new dimension to the selection process for Audu’s replacement as Tom Ohikere, the media aide to the late Prince Abubakar Audu said his principal endorsed his running mate, Hon. James Faleke of the All Progressives Congress (APC) before he died.

“But it has been a grand conspiracy between the party leadership and the Presidency to ensure that a Muslim is used as a replacement to the late Prince Abubakar Audu, who died on November 22.”
“The state will not only catch fire, but the late Prince Audu will rise from the grave and unleash terror on anyone involved in this conspiracy.
“Let me open up to you now. Our political mentor and father, the late Prince Audu on his dying bed, gave instruction to us (his followers) that should he not make it, the baton must be transferred to his run­ning mate, Faleke, whom he (Audu), said is capable of carrying on with his vi­sion.

“I want to categorically tell you that the party/ex­ecutive’s conspiracy start­ed when they heard that Prince Audu was dead, and in an ulterior move to draft a non-Muslim (Faleke), to step in, the INEC Return­ing Officer, was quickly di­rected to declare the result inconclusive.”
“I am amazed by the shades of opinion can­vassed by several leading legal icons on this seeming­ly thorny issue. Some have called for fresh election, others have argued other­wise, while some have pos­ited that the victory of APC should be wholesale, do­nated to PDP’s Capt Wada.
“Surprisingly, all these arguments seem to have overlooked the provisions of Section 187 (1) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 as amended. This provision states:
“In any election to which the foregoing provision of this part of this chap­ter relates, a candidate for the office of governor of a state shall not be deemed to have been validly nomi­nated for such office unless he nominates another can­didate as his associate for his running for the office of Governor who is to occupy the office of Deputy Gov­ernor,” Ohikere said.

Daily Sun newspaper

The Punch equally focused on the same report with the running mate of the late APC candidate, Abiodun Faleke describing the claim that the party had reached an agreement with him as “false”.
He said: “All these talks about the APC reaching out to me are unfounded. Nothing like that has happened. They have not approached me. It is false and not true.
“In any case, what purpose will that serve? I have made my position very clear in the letters I wrote to INEC and the national chairman of the party.
“I have written a second one, and I am saying that the nomination of Bello is wrong; we won’t accept it. We stand by the position as stated in those letters.
“And for the benefit of doubt, I am on this project with (Mohammed Audu)) the son of my late boss. We are working together in opposing this nomination of Bello.”

the Punch newspaper

Vanguard newspaper focused on INEC’s deadline to APC to substitute the late Audu.
The commission had earlier refuted claims that it gave a deadline to the party to forward the name of its new candidate.
However, Deputy Director in charge of publicity at the commission, Nick Dazang said that the party has till December 1, to submit the name of its candidate.
He was however; silent on whether INEC would retain the late Audu’s name on the ballot paper should the party fail to do the needful before the deadline.
“APC has been requested to submit a candidate before or on December 1, 2015”, he said, directing further enquiries to the party.

The Nation newspaper reported the issue from Faleke’s new letter to the national chairman of the APC.
The letter reads: “I wish to put it on record that I was neither consulted by anybody before my name was submitted as running mate to a man who has since the conduct of primaries, abandoned the party, took the party to court, worked for the PDP, thereby causing our party to lose his polling unit 80 votes to his ally party PDPs 116, repeating same feat at the Ward level with APC scoring 1,146 to PDP’s 2,058.
“While it is true that the said Alhaji Yahaya Bello participated in our party primaries, its trite that party primaries are conducted to produce a candidate and once a candidate is produced, the congress, being an ad-hoc tool for that purpose, should automatically extinguish.
“It is clear from this injustice, that our party is on the path of rewarding disloyalty and discourage loyalty through this act of impunity for which we all fought the PDP.
“It may also interest you Mr. Chairman Sir, that the said Yahaya Bello, since the conduct of the primaries, had been aloof from party activities as it is on record that he did not attend a single meeting or campaign rally of the party.
“Mr. Chairman Sir, I am sure that it is neither in your interest, nor that of the party in particular and the public in general to lord an illegality on the people of Kogi State.
“Please, take note that I am not interested in surrendering the mandate the people of Kogi State bestowed on the Audu/Faleke joint ticket at the November 21 poll as I remain the governor-elect.
“I believe in the leadership of our great party to resolve this in the shortest possible time, failure upon which I shall be forced to seek redress in the court of law.”
Faleke restated his position as contained in two letters last Thursday from his counsel, Chief Wole Olanipekun to the APC national chairman and the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof Mahmood Yakubu.

The Nation newspaper