Kogi: I have no regrets challenging Bello’s election – Faleke

The deputy governorship candidate in the November 21, 2015 election in Kogi State, James Faleke, has declared that he has no regrets in challenging the election of Yahaya Bello as Governor of the state.

In a statement by Duro Meseko, issued shortly after the verdict of the Supreme Court, Faleke, who was the running mate to the late Abubakar Audu, candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC), said he took the step in “good faith to protect the interest of the over 240,000 electorates that voted for the Audu/Faleke ticket.”

“It would have amounted to a betrayal of the sacred trust of the people who reposed implicit confidence in the Audu/Faleke ticket not to have defended the sanctity of their vote up till the Apex court level.

“We have heard the judgement handed down by the Supreme Court jurists upholding Yahaya Bello as governor. We shall wait for the full text of the judgement to know why they came to that conclusion.

“But let it be stated here that we have no regrets challenging the declaration of our election as inconclusive by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC). What we did was to defend the votes cast for Audu/Faleke by the over 240,000 electorates on November 21, 2015.

“The people voted for us as candidates not APC because they believe in the kind of leadership we offer to provide for them during our campaigns. It would therefore amount to crass betrayal of the trust of these electorates not to have defended their votes till the end.”

Faleke had challenged the APC’s decision to nominate Bello as its new candidate for a supplementary election that held in December 2015 after Audu died but was leading in the declared election.

After a prolonged legal tussle at the High Court and the Appeal Court, a seven-man panel headed by Justice Sylvester Ngwata of the Supreme Court affirmed Bello’s election saying it would provide reasons for its decision on September 30.