Ekiti State governor, Ayodele Fayose, has alleged that President Muhammadu Buhari is “using his personal lawyer and member of All Progressives Congress, APC, who is the Attorney-General of the Federation, AGF, and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, to induce the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, decision on the inconclusive Kogi State governorship election.”
He said: “The President is using the AGF to carry out an act which amounted to amending the 1999 Constitution of Nigeria and the Electoral Act 2010 to advance his ambition and that of his party to turn Nigeria to a one-party state.”
In a statement by his Special Assistant on Public Communications and New Media, Lere Olayinka, the governor noted that “only the Supreme Court can resolve issues not envisaged by the Constitution, like the one that happened concerning the Kogi State governorship election.
“INEC further exposed its partisanship and undependability by relying on legal advice from the AGF, a man who has disobeyed the court severally and an interested party in the Kogi State election being a personal lawyer of President Buhari and a member of the APC.”
The governor said President Buhari and APC took to illegal amendment of the Constitution and the Electoral Act owing to the fear of facing a fresh election as a result of the malpractices perpetrated by the party in the inconclusive election.
Fayose said it was shameful that the first election held by the new INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, ended in controversy, adding that the manipulation of the Kogi State election and INEC’s illegal position on the substitution of APC candidate was a vindication of his earlier position that the INEC chairman was appointed just to do the biddings of President Buhari and his party.
The governor, who said the fact that Prince Abubakar Audu died in the early hours of last Sunday and his death was kept secret until later that day pointed to the sinister plot of the APC, adding: “Having manipulated the election substantially, what they plotted by covering up Audu’s death for hours against Islamic injunction, was to declare a dead candidate as elected governor of Kogi State so as to pave way for the emergence of his running mate as the governor-elect.”
He called on Nigerians to rise against what he described as systematic dictatorship.
