Speaker of the House of Representatives, Yakubu Dogara, has described the decision of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, to cancel the Tafawa Balewa local government governorship election results in Bauchi state as lacking substance and a clear departure from the provision of the law.
Dogara, who addressed the media in Bauchi, noted that it was absurd for the electoral body to order a cancellation of the results of an election that was conducted in a free, fair and transparent manner, “on the basis of computation of the final results which was caused by the carting away of the result sheet by agents of the sitting governor, Mohammed Abdullahi Abubakar, who is the candidate of the All Progressives Congress, APC.”
He explained, “there was no problem at all in Tafawa Balewa. The only problem they had was the final collation. If that was the only problem, one will think that the worse decision that can be taken is for them to provide the relevant collation sheet to her (collation officer) and say go and complete the collation and bring it in the proper sheet. But in law, anybody who is a lawyer knows that the issue of form does not defeat the issue of substance.
“Now, the substance is that there was a fair, free and credible election, which nobody is challenging. The only issue is that it wasn’t conveyed in the proper form and that can be cured and so, as it is, this election has been won and lost, no matter how you look at it and the PDP, Kauran Bauchi is, by the grace of God, the sitting governor-elect.”
Dogara noted that by the cancellation, the governor whose thugs allegedly caused the problem will still be the beneficiary of the action adding that in law, “a criminal is never allowed to take the benefits of the fruits of his own crime.”
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He said further: “If you look at it carefully, the thugs that invaded the collation centre in Tafawa Balewa are agents of the governor, the sitting governor of Bauchi State. Their names were read out, it is not a rumour, they were apprehended by the army, including the vehicle they used for the operation and they have been handed over to the police.
“Now, if they were acting for a disclosed principal, which is the governor of Bauchi State, the point is that in the law of agency which we read and it hasn’t changed, the principal is responsible for the acts of his agents.
“So, if they were acting as agents of the sitting governor, will the governor now take benefit of the crimes committed by his agents? That is one big question that INEC must answer.
“Secondly, I want to say that the chairman of INEC is a citizen of Bauchi State, just like all of us and they say that charity begins at home. Will he therefore sit down in Abuja and watch or preside over this brazen rape of the mandate of Bauchi State? Will he sit down and sleep in peace when he sees that the decision of his own people here in Bauchi State is being upturned by agents of the agency over which he superintends? That is the question that Professor Mahmood Yakubu, my namesake, will have to answer and the people of Bauchi State are watching. We want to see whether he will cast his vote with the people of Bauchi State or with those who are seeking to oppress the people of Bauchi State.”
