A lawyer, Mr. Pat Anyadubalu, has endorsed the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to continue with its plan of conducting supplementary elections in 59 polling units instead of a state wide governorship election to resolve the constitutional logjam in Kogi.
Averring that supplementary polls is the surest legal way out of the crisis created by the death of Prince Abubakar Audu, the All Progressives Congress, APC governorship candidate, who was leading in the inconclusive polls held last Saturday,
Anyadubalu picked holes in suggestion that the Attorney General of the Federation should approach the Supreme Court for interpretation or the Alhaji Atiku Abubakar/Boni Haruna (Adamawa) and Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers) instances should be applied.
His words: ”The Attorney –General of the Federation or the State has no locus standi to seek for the interpretation of this issue at the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court, being an appellate court, except in matters between States or between States and Federal Government, where it enjoys original jurisdiction.
”Again, Section 133(1) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended (referred herein after as “the Act”) says that no election or return at an election under this Act shall be questioned in any matter except by petition presented to the competent tribunal.
”Also section 181 of the 1999 constitution as amended is also not applicable because no person has been duly elected. Those who refer to Boni Haruna’s case are missing the point because Boni Haruna’s case is not on all fours with the present Kogi case.
In Boni Haruna’s case, the election had been concluded and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar and Boni Haruna were announced winners as Governor and Deputy Governor respectively unlike in the present case where nobody has been Rotimi Amaechi’s case is also inapplicable because, the Supreme Court’s decision in Amaechi’s case has been overruled through legislative enactment of section 141 of the Act, which provides that an election tribunal or court shall not under any circumstance declare any person a winner at an election in which such a person has not fully participated in all the stages of the said elections.
Another prominent view expressed by some legal practitioners is that the entire process should be cancelled and the election commenced a fresh.
” This is also laced with another bottleneck because section 68(1)( c) of the Act provides that a declaration of scores of candidates shall be final subject to review by a tribunal or court in an election petition proceedings under this Act, therefore INEC has no power to annual or cancel any result already announced.
