Kogi poll: APM candidate tells INEC chairman to resign ahead of election

By Dirisu Yakubu – Abuja

With just three days to the governorship election in Kogi State, the Allied Peoples’ Movement (APM) governorship candidate in the state, Yusuf Mamman Dantale, on Tuesday asked the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, to resign from his position.

Dantale, who doubles as APM National Chairman, made the call during a chat with journalists at the party’s national headquarters in Abuja.

The APM chief said Yakubu’s resignation has become necessary given what he called the party’s lack of confidence in his ability to conduct a free, fair and credible election in Kogi.

While calling for the postponement of the election for upward of three weeks, Dantale said such a postponement would enable him to go round the three senatorial districts in the state to campaign for votes.

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According to him, he could not campaign for the election because INEC had erroneously disqualified him from the exercise and forced him to seek a redress in court.

He said: 

      “We don’t have confidence in Prof. Mahmood Yakubu because he is already compromised. He should resign now.

“INEC disqualified me and I had to go to the court. Today, we got a judgement at the Federal High Court, Abuja, presided over by Justice Evelyn Maha, who ruled that INEC lacked the powers to disqualify any candidate.

“I got a judgement today and that is less than four days to the election. I

I need at least three weeks to enable me go round the three senatorial districts to campaign as other candidates did.”

He also said that until the court judgement, some of his supporters thought he received monetary inducement to bow out of the race.