THE Publicity Secretary of Lagos State chapter of All Progressives Congress (APC), Mr. Joe Igbokwe has described the decision to swear in Alhaji Yaya Bello as the governor of Kogi State today a travesty that must be seriously considered before it is implemented.

He described the exercise as frightening and a big challenge to the country’s democracy.Igbokwe, who spoke in his personal capacity yesterday said, “Before we swear in Alhaji Yahaya Bello who never won the governorship election in Kogi State, let me caution. The system may have decided in their own wisdom to swear him in as governor but l want history to record that l saw a travesty and an aberration coming and raised an alarm. The alarm may be ignored but history, which neither personal wealth or power can circumvent will be my witness.”

According to him, “The truth here and nothing but the truth is that the late Chief Abubakar Audu/ James Abiodun Faleke won the November 21 2015 governor election fair and square before Audu’s death the following day. When the news filtered into the public space that Audu had died what the State’s Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Returning Officer, Professor Emmanuel Kucha would have done is to do an urgent truthful and honest consultations, carry out a simple arithmetic, check the number of registered voters, check the number of those with the Permanent Voters Card (PVC) in the 91 polling units. The World was told that there are 49,000 registered voters in the remaining 91 polling units and out of that 49,000 voters only 25,000 have PVCs. But the late Audu was leading with 41,000 votes. Assuming that all the 25,000 persons with PVCs voted for the PDP, Audu would still have beaten the outgoing governor, Idris Wada with 16,000 votes.

“This professor turned sound reasoning upside down by saying the election was inconclusive and ordered for supplementary election in the remaining 91 polling units. Now what was the result? Only about 10,000 votes were garnered in the futile exercise that wasted everybody’s precious gift of time, energy, money, strength and power.”

He continued that a combination of ethnic politics, primordial sentiments, and fear of the unknown led the Kogi chapter of APC and the national body of the party to do the unthinkable by pushing Alhaji Bello who lost the primaries, and may not have supported the APC’s candidate in the cause of the elections proper to take the mandate won by Prince Audu and Faleke in a keenly contested exercise fraught with excruciating pains, doubts, apprehension, anxiety, fatigue, panic and unease.

“What was their excuse? Faleke did not partake in the primaries. This is the absurdity that led to the emergence of Bello,” he said.

Igbokwe noted that the swearing in of Bello frightens him as an activist and believer in equity and social justice “it worries me to the marrows that there is deafening silence in town as if all the decent men and women who should speak out have suddenly lost their steam and voices.”

He however expresses confidence that the Supreme Court will do the needful to Faleke’s case, saying: “Audu/ Faleke got the majority of votes in Kogi governorship election and got the mandate to preside over the affairs in that state for four years. That Faleke refused to accept the poisoned chalice, as deputy governor should serve, as a signal to the interlopers and intruders in Kogi that today’s event is not the end of the matter.”