PDP Reacts To INEC’s Decision On Late Audu’s Replacement; Calls For AGF Sack

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has reacted to the verdict by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to allow the All Progressive Congress (APC) replace its late governorship candidate, Prince Abubakar Audu, ahead of Kogi State supplementary election.

  

Photo credit: Vanguard
The party also blamed the attorney-general of the federation (AGF), Malam Abubakar Malami, for allegedly misleading INEC into arriving at the decision.

“The PDP has asked the AGF, Malam Abubakar Malami, to immediately vacate his office for harrying and misleading INEC into arriving at an unconstitutional decision to allow the APC to substitute its candidate in the inconclusive Kogi State governorship election.
“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.
“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 inactions 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 had elapsed under all the rules.
“INEC as a statutory body has the full complements of technical hands in its legal department to advise 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.
“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 the late Prince 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.
“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 and the sanctity of the electoral process.”

Bear in mind, INEC had fixed December 5 for the supplementary election and permitted the APC to replace its candidate in the forthcoming election.