Kogi Awaits Court’s Ruling A Day To Supplementary Election

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Its less than 24 hours to the supplementary governorship election in Kogi State, and attention is presently in Abuja, Nigeria’s Federal Capital Territory, where the Federal High Court, will, on Friday, determine whether the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) should go ahead with its plan to conduct a supplementary poll in Kogi State on Saturday.

The presiding judge, Justice Gabriel Kolawole, adjourned for judgment after all the parties adopted their final written addresses on contentious legal issues that arose after the sudden death of the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr Abubakar Audu, before the election was concluded.

INEC had declared the governorship election held on November 21 inconclusive, even as it fixed Saturday to conduct a run-off poll.

The electoral body said it declared the election inconclusive because the margin between the leading candidate, Late Audu and the second contestant, the incumbent Governor and candidate of the Peoples Democratic Party, was less than the number of cancelled votes.

The court had on Tuesday, consolidated four separate suits challenging the legality of the scheduled supplementary election.

Justice Kolawole, who merged the four suits, said there was need for the court to expeditiously determine the issues “so that INEC will not conduct the election under a grave shadow of doubt as to the legal or constitutional validity”.

In one of the suits, Governor Wada is specifically asking the court to declare him the winner of the November 21 governorship election, following the death of the candidate of the APC, Mr Abubakar Audu, who was leading.

However, the other persons, Johnson Usman, Emmanuel Daikwo and Emmanuel Igbokwe are asking the court to rule that a fresh governorship election should be conducted in the state.