On behalf of the entire members and Board of Trustees of the Igala Youth Leaders Assembly (IYLA), Ukomu Igala, and other participating organisations, and the entire good people of Kogi East Senatorial District, I welcome you, distinguished members of the press, to this crucial and critical press conference.
This press conference is very important because here we shall articulate the malfeasance displayed by Dr Hale Gabriel Longpet, INEC’s Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Kogi State being administratively misguided by the State INEC Administrative Secretary Engr.Suleiman Tanko, a close ally of Kogi State Governor Yahaya Bello, whose wrongdoings have polluted the electoral process, diminished the confidence in INEC, and spread sorrow and unhappiness in Kogi State.
We will start by congratulating President Bola Ahmed Tinubu, Vice-President Kashim Shettima, and all the 28 newly elected governors who assumed offices on May 29, 2023. We pray for them to have the wisdom and sound health needed to steer the affairs of this nation, as they lead Nigeria into the next phases of our political and economic development.
OUR PROTEST LETTER TO INEC CHAIRMAN MAHMOUD YAKUBU.
Without much ado, this press conference is a follow-up to an earlier letter to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Professor Yakubu Mahmoud, last month written on our behalf by Ukomu Igala Organisation. That letter unequivocally called for the immediate discipline of Dr Hale Longpet as Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Kogi State. Weeks after the letter was delivered to Professor Yakubu Mahmoud, the INEC Chairman has not shown evidence of a desire to take us seriously.
It is for that reason that members of this organization and like-minds have organised this world press conference today, to reinforce our demand that Professor Yakubu Mahmoud and the INEC Management show that steps are being taken to redeem the battered image of INEC in Kogi State, and to give us confidence that the gubernatorial election is going to be free,fair, credible and transparent. This step is to immediately, without wavering, remove or discipline Dr Hale Gabriel Longpet and Engr.Suleiman Tanko as the REC and Administrative Secretary of INEC in Kogi State for their roles in supporting Governor Yahaya Bello to claim that APC primaries held across all wards and Local Government Council Headquarters across Kogi State, which sparks outcry of the possible outcome of the November gubernatorial election, if the shoddy APC gubernatorial primaries can be applauded by INEC as acceptable.
Dr Hale Longpet and Engr. SuleimanTanko have been engaged in professional misconduct and biases, which have made mockery of elections and the democratic process in the North-Central State of Kogi State.
Apparently, their cups are full and running over, so INEC cannot continue to turn a blind eye to their misconduct. The people of Kogi State, have totally rejected them, and INEC must immediately remove them and replace them with people who have capacity to ensure free,fair, credible and transparent polls in the coming gubernatorial election in November 2023..
Without mincing words, we call on Professor Yakubu Mahmoud to remove Dr Hale Longpet and Engr.Suleiman Tanko, Including those Electoral Officers who have served for so many years and have become landlords in the State , whose activities for the Governor give him the opportunity to boast that his already written results for the Kogi November 11, 2023 gubernatorial election will be announced in favour of his anointed candidate. These electoral umpires should be removed from Kogi State due to their lack of impartiality, which is unbecoming.
Dr. Hale Longpet and Engr. Suleiman Tanko have, in diverse ways not hidden from the people of Kogi State, that they are totally and unreservedly subservient to the whims and caprices of some anti-democratic, greedy, corrupt and divisive forces in Kogi State, led by failed Governor Yahaya Bello. Dr Hale Longpet and Engr. Suleiman Tanko have manifested their incompetence in conducting elections in the State, a failure that has made them to lose credibility in the sight of the people of Kogi State.
We, the people of Kogi State, have, therefore, lost confidence in Dr. Hale Longpet and Engr. Suleiman Tanko’s neutrality to conduct the next governorship election in the State, scheduled to hold in November 2023.
LONGLIST OF DR. HALE LONGPET’S INCOMPETENCE AND BIASES
His incompetence is not hidden. In the February 25, 2023 National Assembly Elections, Dr Hale Longpet failed to play his role as an unbiased umpire, by declaring winners in elections marred by many irregularities. Some of the distortion, flaws, and aberrations he overlooked in the polls include the following:
Manipulation of BVAS, as many voters were denied their right to vote because BVAS showed that they had been accredited, though they were not. It was clear that INEC officials had configured BVAS to prevent thousands of persons to cast their votes in the National Assembly elections.
Electoral violence in Kogi East Senatorial District. The REC turned the blind eye and failed to take the right steps in such circumstances. He approved blood-soaked election results.
Snatching of ballot boxes at gunpoint in Kogi East Senatorial District. Video and photographic evidence were on display for the world to see, but Dr. Hale Longpet did not see them. He went ahead to declare winners.
Inconclusive polls in hundreds of polling units in Kogi East Senatorial District due to disruptions by criminal elements who worked for a political party.
Party agents were forced to sign fraudulent election results at gunpoint, in the presence of INEC officials, who still declared those results as valid.
Alleged Electoral fraud, in the form of alteration of results in favour of Yahaya Bello’s candidates, from many polling units in Kogi East Senatorial District, carried out by INEC officials and security personnel during the collation of the results.
Failure to call for the conduct of fresh elections (or make up polls) at polling units where violence or lack of electoral materials prevented thousands of voters from casting the votes during the elections.
Declaring results under shady circumstances.
Destruction of ballot papers and boxes by elements like Joseph Salami the Adavi Local Government Chairman that belong to the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) as shown in the viral video, but INEC failed to take necessary action.
Total lack of transparency in the conduct of the elections, such that those declared winners were not seen to have truly won the elections.
We have photographic and electronic evidence of all these abuses of the electoral process in Kogi East Senatorial District during the last election. In spite of the overwhelming evidence of fraud, Dr. Longpet, in cahoot with Governor Yahaya Bello declared their cronies as winners of the elections.
FRAUDULENT APC PRIMARY ELECTIONS:
Buoyed by the fraudulent successes he recorded in his evil machination in the senatorial elections in February, Dr. Hale Longpet supervised another fraudulent APC primary election for the 2023 governorship polls, slated for November this year.
In the so-called primary election that produced a candidate, thousands of party members in Kogi East Senatorial District waited on queues from morning till 2.00pm on the day of the primary election, April 15, 2023. They left disappointed as neither electoral officers nor electoral materials were made available for them to vote for the party’s candidate of their choice in many places. They were disenfranchised! Party members waited in vain to vote without electoral officers turning up to conduct the elections.
It was shocking to Nigerians that INEC accepted the results of the phantom primary election, when in reality, as shown in electronic and documentary evidence, no primary election was conducted against internal party democracy where INEC are supposed to supervise and ratify in line with the 2022 Electoral Act. Candidates in the primary election, party officials, and the Nigerian public witnessed the charade that took place in Government House in Lokoja, where fake results were written and declared by the Secretary of the Committee. Government House was not the recognized venue for collation and announcement of results. It was a venue where other aspirants in the contest and their agents could not access to participate in the process of collation and announcement of the result of their own election.
DR.HALE GABRIEL LONGPET AND ENGR. SULEIMAN TANKO ARE OF QUESTIONABLE INTEGRITY:
Schedule F(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (as amended) states specifically and clearly that Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) and indeed all electoral officers must be “persons of unquestionable integrity.” This is because the currency that gives INEC the moral courage to conduct elections is ‘integrity’. It is the integrity of the electoral umpire that determines whether or not the votes of the people would count in any election.
We have listed many instances of the lack of integrity by Dr.Hale Gabriel Longpet and Engr.Suleiman Tanko who have been posted as the REC and Administrative Secretary in Kogi State to conduct elections on behalf of INEC. They have spent not too long period in Kogi State, but we have weighed them on the balance and found them wanting. We state categorically that we, the people of Kogi East Senatorial District, have lost absolute confidence in Dr Hale Longpet and Engr. Suleiman Tanko.
Dr. Hale Longpet and Engr Tanko are not only partial in Kogi elections, but they were used to manipulate the elections in February 2023, and the APC primary elections in April 2023. There is a saying that a leopard cannot change the colour of its skin. Dr Hale Longpet and Engr. Suleiman Tanko are men without integrity. They have demonstrated it in previous elections. We cannot trust them to be different in the November 2023 governorship elections in Kogi State.
We also use this opportunity to inform the Press and Nigerians that we are uncovering information that Governor Yahaya Bello may be training thugs in Okene LGA to promote insecurity in the State ahead of the gubernatorial election.
This was evident in the incidence of Saturday, 3rd of June 2023, where the governor’s convoy was alleged to have attacked the SDP candidate’s convoy coming to Lokoja on a thank you visit along Lokoja-Abuja road.
Thank you.
May God bless the Federal Republic of Nigeria.
May God bless Kogi State
May God bless Kogi East Senatorial District.
RT. Hon. Dr. Ojoachele Akor Felix
Speaker, Igala Youth Leaders Assembly (IYLA)
