The People’s Democratic Party, PDP’s National Working Committee will hold an emergency National Caucus meeting on Wednesday to re-strategize on the Kogi gubernatorial supplementary election as well as take a decision on what it called “obvious threat to our democracy.”
Ahead of the meeting, the PDP has demanded that the Attorney General of the Federation, Abubakar Malami, immediately vacate his office for “harrying and misleading” the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) into arriving at “an unconstitutional decision” to allow the APC to substitute its candidate in the inconclusive Kogi State governorship election.
The party in a statement signed by its National Publicity Secretary, Olisa Metuh, criticized the development which is likely to result to the loss of Kogi state to the ruling APC.
“The party is shocked that INEC, a supposedly independent electoral umpire, 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 party statement read.
PDP argues that INEC as a statutory body has the full complements of technical experts in its legal department to advice it appropriately and we wonder why it had to wait for directives from the AGF, an external party, if not for partisan and subjective interest.
“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 on-going election even after the timelines for such has elapsed under all the rules.”
It however, rejected the move as unconstitutional. “Consequently, the PDP rejects in its entirety, this brazen move by the APC and INEC to circumvent the laws and ambush the yet-to-be concluded election by introducing a practice that is completely alien to the constitution and the electoral act.
“The clear implication of this action of the AGF and INEC is that the APC would be fielding two different governorship candidates in the ongoing Kogi election, meaning that INEC would be transferring votes cast for late Abubakar Audu to another candidate, scenarios that have no place in the constitution of the land.
“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,” the party.
The party further claimed that INEC under the leadership of Mahmood Yakubu has shown itself as partisan, morally bankrupt and obviously incapable of conducting a credible election within our laws and also demands his resignation.
“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 and the sanctity of the electoral process,” the PDP said.
By Olisemeka Obeche