Gbenga Odogun
The Kogi State chapter of the All Progressive Grand Alliance has added its voice to the growing demand for the rejection of Alhaji Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress as the winner of the November 21 governorship election.
Consequently, its candidate in the election, Goodman Akwu, has approached the Kogi State Governorship Election Petitions Tribunal seeking to invalidate the Independent National Electoral Commission’s decision to declare Bello as the winner.
This brings to six the total number of petitions filed at the tribunal to challenge INEC’s decision.
Others are the petitions of Governor Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party; the running mate to the late Abubakar Audu, James Faleke; Mr. Philip Salawu of the Labour Party; the Progressive Party Alliance and the African Democratic Congress.
It was gathered that APGA’s petition was filed last Thursday in Lokoja, the state capital
It was learnt that the petition was signed by Chief Chris Uche (SAN) who would lead two other senior advocates to the tribunal.
The crisis rocking the state governorship election started with the declaration of the November 21 election as inconclusive and was made worse with the sudden death of the APC candidate, Audu, who was leading the poll.
The APC subsequently replaced Audu with Bello, who won the election after Audu’s votes were added to his own.
Bello’s declaration as winner has since attracted a barrage of petitions with each petitioner asking to be declared the winner on the grounds that the votes of a dead candidate cannot be transferred to a living person.