The Independent National Electoral Commission (APC) has presented Alhaji Yahaya Bello of the All Progressives Congress (APC) with the certificate of return as the duly elected governor of Kogi State.
Represented by INEC National Commissioner, Professor Anthonia Okoosi-Simbine, the commission chairman said the exercise followed the conclusion of the governorship election and in accordance with section 75(2) of the Electoral Act (as amended). The certificate of return was presented to Bello by the INEC Chairman, Prof. Yakubu Mahmud, at about 4:00pm, at INEC’s office in Lokoja.
This was even as the APC today said that it might be constrained to replace its deputy governorship candidate in the recently concluded Kogi state governorship poll if the need arises.
In apparent reaction to the threat by the estranged deputy governorship candidate, Hon. Biodun Faleke, that he would boycott the swearing-in ceremony of the governor-elect, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, the National Chairman of APC, Chief John Oyegun said that if all reconciliatory moves fail, the party will have no alternative but to seek for his replacement.
Addressing Journalists at the party’s national secretariat on Wednesday in Abuja, Oyegun said the leadership understood the frustrations that most of the stakeholders in the Kogi governorship tussle underway due to the sudden demise of it late candidate Audu Abubakar, and as such is ready to allow things to simmer.
“On the Faleke issue, it is rather a straightforward and easy issue. We have replaced a governorship candidate. If the need arises and subject to what the law says, we will also get another deputy governorship candidate but we will cross those bridges as they arise but they have not arisen yet,” he said. [myad]
