Ahead tomorrow’s burial of Prince Abubakar Audu, the only man who would have governed Kogi State for the third time had death not decreed otherwise, permutations and projections have commenced over who succeeds him. And according to YES INTERNATIONAL! Magazine findings, the lot, there is no debating it, will fall on his running mate in the Saturday, November 21, 2015 governorship election which the Independent National Electoral Election, INEC, just declared inconclusive.
His name is Hon. James Abiodun Faleke. A native of Ekinrin Adde, in Ijumu local government area of Kogi State, he was born on December 25, 1959. His primary education was in his village and his secondary at Abdulazeez Atta Memorial College, from where he proceeded to Kaduna Polytechnic for his HND in Purchasing & Supply. He graduated in 1986, winning the Best Student Award.
His NYSC was in Lagos in 1986/87 and this was at the National Orthopaedic Hospital in Igbobi. The quest for further education also took him to Imo State University where he bagged his MBA in Management. The erstwhile Chairman of Ojodu LCDA, in Ikeja, Lagos, he was a member of the Federal House of Representatives (representing Ikeja Federal Constituency) before being dragged into Kogi guber race as late Prince Abubakar Audu’s running mate.
Constitutionally, he should have stepped in effortlessly as the next Governor of Kogi State had INEC not declared their election inconclusive. ‘If they had been declared winners, automatically, he would have been sworn in since he ran on the same ticket with Abubakar’, said one legal practitioner. ‘Yes, he was part and parcel of the votes cast and counted. Therefore, there would not have arisen any controversy over what would have happened’.
On the legal implication of the Kogi governorship tragedy, he said the Attorney General and Minister of Justice, Abubakar Malami, and the courts have to come to our rescue. ‘The reason being that this situation was not provided for in Nigeria’s Electoral Act…In fact, the Electoral Act must be amended because of this. I mean, this is the first time that we are witnessing this and the people who penned our Electoral Act obviously never envisaged this. All they made provision for is that in the event of a Governor dying or being impeached, his Deputy automatically steps in and not when a standard bearer dies, like in the case of Abubakar Audu of Kogi State’.
Audu, it would be recalled, died on Sunday, November 22, 2015. He reportedly complained of a stomach disorder, then suffered a stroke before ultimately succumbing to death. He will be buried tomorrow morning in his village, Alloma, Ofu LGA of Kogi State. He was aged 68.