The governorship aspirant on the platform of the Social Democratic Party (SDP) in Kogi State, Natasha Akpoti, has asked the Federal High Court, Abuja to disqualify Governor Yahaya Bello as a governorship candidate in the November 16, 2019 governorship election in the state.
In the suit numbered FHC/ABJ/CS/122/2019 filed on Monday, Akpoti wants Bello, the governorship candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) disqualified over alleged double registration as a voter.
The plaintiff also asked the court to bar Bello from holding public office for ten years.
She also prayed for an order compelling the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) to “thoroughly investigate the act of double registration” and “to immediately prosecute him upon the expiration of his first tenure in office as governor of Kogi State in January 2020”.
Chief Mike Ozekhome (SAN), who filed the suit on behalf of the plaintiff contended that Bello’s act of double registration as a voter was a violation of section 24(e) of the Electoral Act.
Ozekhome argued that by Bello’s willful act of making double registration, he is not a fit and proper person to be allowed by INEC to vote or be voted for in the forthcoming Kogi State governorship election.
Ozekhome 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 she deposed to in support of the suit, Akpoti, said she contested March 23, 2019, Kogi Central senatorial election but lost and added that she had emerged as the SDP’s candidate in the forthcoming governorship election in the state but was unjustifiably disqualified by INEC.
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 alleged that Bello first registered as a voter in Abuja in 2011 and procured the second voter registration in Lokoja, the Kogi State capital in May 2017.
and then