Kogi election: I’m APC’s gov candidate, Faleke insists

THE deputy governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the 21 November, 2015 governorship election in Kogi State, Honourable James Abiodun Faleke has insisted that he is the party’s governorship candidate, following the death of his principal, Prince Abubakar Audu.
This is just as he rejected his nomination as running mate to the governorship candidate picked by his party contest the supplementary election, Alhaji Yahaya Bello.
Faleke, in a letter dated 27 November, written by  Wole Olanipekun & Co and addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun, maintained that the nomination of any other candidate to serve as Faleke’s principal would be strange to law and the constitution, warning the party not to toe that path, which it said would be full of legal land mines.
He had, in a separate letter he personally signed, also rejected the party’s submission of his name as deputy governorship candidate to Bello, noting that he would remain committed to the ticket, which he and the Audu contested on through which they defeated the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP).
This is coming on the heels of the APC’s nomination of the first runner-up in the governorship primary that produced Audu, Alhaji Yahaya Bello, as the governorship candidate of the party ahead of the December 5, 2015 supplementary election in 91 polling units across the state.
But Faleke maintained that in the face of the law and the constitution, he is the governorship candidate of the party, saying: “The issue involved is that of constitutional, formal and legal imperatives, rather than political expediency. In the eyes of the Constitution and the law, our client is the governor-elect of Kogi State. There is no gainsaying this fact. It is a truism that cannot be discounted.”
Faleke’s letter, a copy of which was obtained by Sunday Tribune, stated that bringing another governorship candidate to contest election in 91 polling units rather than the deputy governorship candidate to the late Audu, is laden with legal land mines.
 The letter added that Faleke could not be jettisoned by the party or have a fresh governorship candidate imposed on him as his principal, because “law does not recognise this type of supplementary election in 91 polling units, with a total number of eligible votes with PVCs not more than 25,000 or thereabout...Put bluntly, there cannot be any legitimate governor of Kogi State who would emerge from supplementary election outside (our client) with a maximum  of 25,000 votes, assuming all the registered voters with PVCs cast their votes for the anticipatory supplementary candidate.
Faleke’s lawyer cited the example of 

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