PDP asks attorney-general, INEC chairman to resign over substitution of ‘a dead candidate’

The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) has asked Abubakar Malami, attorney-general of the federation (AGF), “to immediately vacate his office for misleading the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC)”.

The party accused Malami of misguiding the electoral body to ask the All Progressives Congress (APC) to pick a replacement for the late Abubakar Audu ahead of the December 5 supplementary election.

The party also demanded the resignation of Mahmood Yakubu, INEC chairman, for endorsing the idea of the AGF.

In a statement issued by Olisa Metuh, PDP spokesman, on Tuesday, the opposition party said it was 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 inaction without undue interference from any quarters whatsoever,” the statement read.

“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 on-going election even after the timelines for such has elapsed under all the rules.

“INEC as a statutory body has the full complements of technical hands in its legal department to advice 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 on-going Kogi election, meaning that INEC would be transferring votes cast for 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.

“In view of the developments regarding Kogi governorship election, the national working committee of the PDP has summoned an emergency national caucus meeting of the party on Wednesday, November 25, 2015 to take a decision on this obvious threat to our democracy.”