In pidgin English, Hon. James Abiodun Faleke, the running mate to late Prince Abubakar Audu in the now controversial and inconclusive Kogi governorship election held on Saturday, November 21, 2015 has told the leadership of his party, APC, that ‘monkey no go work for baboon to chop’.
His lawyer, Chief Wole Olanipekun, SAN, captured it thus in a letter he just fired the John Odigie-Oyegun-led political party: ‘In law and logic, no new candidate can inherit or be a beneficiary of the votes already cast, counted and declared by INEC before the candidate was nominated and purportedly sponsored…
‘ Therefore, no new or supplementary candidate can hijack, aggregate, appropriate or inherit the said votes…’
Going further, the current member of the Federal House of Representatives, representing Ikeja, Lagos Constituency, has also chosen late Prince Audu’s eldest son, Mohammed, as his running mate for the supplementary election. Thus, seriously rattling his party, All Progressives Congress and their replacement for Audu, Yahaya Bello.
Bello had contested the APC guber primaries with Audu and came second. The party had earlier communicated to INEC that he would continue from where Audu stopped. But Faleke would have none of that.
Interestingly, APC still went ahead with the submission of Bello’s name as its candidate later that day. Thus, sealing Faleke’s hope. A free for all thereafter ensued between supporters of the two politicians at the party’s secretariat.