Natasha Akpoti, a former governorship aspirant in Kogi State, has filed a suit before the Federal High Court in Abuja, asking for the disqualification of Governor Yahaya Bello as a candidate in the forthcoming November 16 governorship election in the state.
In the suit marked FHC/ABJ/ CS/122/2019, in which the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) and the All Progressives Congress (APC) are the defendants, Akpoti anchored her prayer on Bello’s alleged double registration as a voter.
Her lawyer, Mike Ozekhome, a senior advocate, who filed the suit on her behalf, contended that Bello’s act of double registration as a voter grossly violated section 24(e) of the Electoral Act.
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Apart from disqualification, the plaintiff also asked the court to bar Bello, the governorship candidate of the APC in the forthcoming poll, from holding public office for 10 years.
She also prayed for another order compelling INEC to “thoroughly investigate the act of double registration” and “to immediately prosecute him upon the expiration of his first tenure of office as governor of Kogi State in January 2020.”
Ozekhome, in the originating summons, argued that as part of the grounds of the suit, that “by his willful act of making double registration”, Bello as APC’s candidate, “is not a fit and proper person to be allowed by the 2nd defendant (INEC), to vote or be voted for in the forthcoming Kogi State governorship election, having committed acts of electoral fraud”.
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The plaintiff’s lawyer also maintained that Bello underwent double voter registration as a voter in gross violation of the electoral law, and that INEC had sacked two of its employees who allegedly “aided and abetted Yahaya Bello in his act of double registration as a voter.”
In the affidavit sworn to by Akpoti, in support of the suit, she said she contested the March 23, 2019 Kogi Central Senatorial election but lost.
She noted that she had emerged as the Social Democratic Party’s candidate in the forthcoming governorship election in the state, however, was unjustifiably disqualified by INEC.
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She described herself as “an indigene of Kogi State, a legal practitioner, an astute politician, a political reformer, a pro-masses advocate, a philanthropist and one deeply involved in and concerned with the parlous state of affairs of Kogi State people and Nigerians alike.”
She further alleged that Bello first registered as a voter in Abuja in 2011, and procured the second voter registration in Lokoja, the state capital in May 2017.
According to her, to confirm the alleged crime, the governor subsequently transferred his Permanent Voter Card from Abuja to Lokoja, while the second registration done in Lokoja was still subsisting.
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The plaintiff also said INEC had severally threatened to prosecute Bello for the act, but that the commission has failed to take any action in stopping him from contesting the governorship election.
“The transfer was carried out and his Permanent Voters Card was issued to him on February 26, 2018, while his second registration at the government house, Lokoja was and is still subsisting,” the suit further said.
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