Justice Party Calls For Cancellation Of Kogi Guber Polls

Last Saturday's Kogi state governorship election, where the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared Idris Wada of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) as overall winner is embroiled in teething troubles, as the campaign office of the

 Justice Party (JP) is calling for an outright cancellation of the polls, Huhuonline.com http://Huhuonline.com/ can report.

The party had alleged that its logo used for campaign during the election was deliberately omitted from the Ballot Papers by INEC for the December 3 rd governorship election, thereby disenfranchising its supporters and voters.

According to a statement signed by Okoroafor Uche, National publicity secretary, Mr. Dayo Thomas, Director of Campaign Organisation and Mr. Femi Soneye, Director of Media, the Justice Party claimed that, 'We have received with dismay and total displeasure the omission of our party logo as noticed in the electoral materials/ballot papers used for the December 3 rd Kogi governorship elections.

'The journey to this oddities started from March 24 th 2011 when we wrote to the INEC to effect a change on the logo and we specified in the said letter that the new logo be used for the purpose of the 3 rd December 2011 governorship election and the letter was acknowledged by the INEC (See attached acknowledged copy of the letter under reference).

'The INEC understood with the party and promised to effect a change before the 2011 April Election but failed.

'As a procedural political party we further contacted the Department of political party INEC in Abuja and the officer in charge acknowledged the receipt of the previous letter and promised that the change required would be made before the December 3 rd 2011 governorship election.

'It is painful to note that rather than effect the change demanded by the party and promised by the INEC, the old logo was maintained and used for the last election which was a deliberate plot to confuse and frustrate our supporters as evidenced in the last election.

'It is no longer contestable that Chief (Mrs) Aisha Abubakar Audu campaigned and was highly supported by the youths and women and many of them could not exercise their rights as they could not identify the logo of the party that was used during the campaign.

'It is obvious from the aforementioned that the INEC runs a system that could not respond to a state of urgency but we must not be the one that will bear the burden. It is clear from many complaints that we received after the election that our teeming supporters were disenfranchised. Hence our resolve to take adequate steps.

'The final results released have projected our candidate as unpopular. We were subjected to abysmal humiliation in the eyes of the public.

'It is clear that our candidate was validly nominated but unlawfully excluded.

'As contained in the Electoral Act we seek the cancellation of the December 3rd governorship elections.

'We have written to the INEC and relevant authorities and in the process of filing our protest with the Electoral Petitions Tribunal. Our team of legal experts has concluded plans to file a suit in the law court', the statement said.