He was the man to beat prior to the Kogi State governorship poll that commenced on November 21. Many days after the inconclusive poll, the death of the late Abubakar Audu, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), continues to beat and confound all expectations, permutations and calculations. This was Audu’s third attempt to become the governor of Kogi State, after previously occupying the office between 1992 and 1993, and again from 1999 to 2003.
Audu’s second coming as governor was less than auspicious. His tenure was largely overshadowed by tales of rampant corruption and graft. Many Nigerians resident in the US at that time remember tales of the governor from Nigeria who reportedly turned the high-brow and affluent city of Potomac, Maryland, into his personal estate, due to the number of expensive properties he allegedly owned there. That governor was Audu, even though the man also laboured at every turn then to deny the rumours and allegations as completely unfounded.
It is the disturbing “firsts” thrown up by Audu’s recent unfortunate death that have continued to seize the public imagination. No other governorship aspirant in Nigeria has been known to die in the middle of an election he was poised to win. Audu also had the unenviable distinction of having his opponent in the same election and incumbent, Captain Idris Wada, declare a seven-day mourning period in his honour, with a three-day holiday for residents of the state added in for good measure. Wada’s gesture was meant as a honour, of course, but it was a morbid and unfortunate one, no less. After all he was already losing to Audu in the same election in which both men were the only major candidates.
The novel nature of Audu’s demise has reverberated the most in the arena of Nigeria’s electoral jurisprudence. Lawyers, legal scholars, politicians and well-meaning Nigerians are falling over themselves trying to explain the way forward in the aftermath of Audu’s death. Well into a week into that process the vexing, if overwhelming, consensus appears to be that there are many ways forward, with none leading to an immediate solution, until the matter probably grinds its way to the Supreme Court of Nigeria.
Notwithstanding the widespread and divergent opinions, existing laws appear to provide reliable guidance on the matter, but only if the jostling of various political and other competing interests do not get in the way.
The most pertinent guidance appears to be found in a joint reading of Section 221 of the 1999 constitution and Section 33 (2) of the 2010 Electoral Act (as amended in 2014). While the former reiterates the supremacy of the political party as the sole beneficiary of the electoral process, rather than the individual candidate presented by that party for an election, the latter states unequivocally: “If the candidate whose name was submitted to the Commission dies or withdraws from the election, the political party, which nominated the candidate, shall forward to the Commission the name of the aspirant who scored the second highest number of votes at the primaries as the substitute candidate.”
These words envisage the circumstance of the late Abubakar Audu’s demise: he was involved in an election which can still be regarded as ongoing when he died, since the polls was declared “inconclusive”. The late Audu had also not been declared the winner, even though he was leading other candidates in the same election. More crucial, the words of Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act envisage that any election that falls within its ambit, such as the one that started on November 21 in Kogi State, must be concluded one way or the other, once the affected party is able to replace its candidate who died while the election was ongoing, as in Audu’s case.
The other words in Section 33 (2) of the Electoral Act certainly throw up the scenario that might invite unbridled—and selfish—political interests to get in the way of an otherwise good law. They mandate the APC, which nominated Audu as its candidate after a keenly-contested primary, to do one thing and one thing only: draft the man who came second to Audu in those primaries as its new candidate in the election that Audu started, and which now remains inconclusive, until INEC completes that process, hopefully in the next few days or weeks.
That man or candidate should certainly not be Audu’s son, daughter or family member as it is now being canvassed in certain quarters, nor even his running mate in the inconclusive elections. The latter assertion, of course, may be deemed very unfortunate in certain quarters. But as those who drafted that law must have realized it takes far more to contest in a party’s primaries, even as one who simply makes up the numbers, than to stand away from that fray and later find oneself appointed running mate by the winner of those primaries because of ethnic, gender, religious or other considerations.
. Soboyede is a public affairs commentator. [myad]
