Politics

Gov. Bello’s crime to be addressed in court

Published

9 years ago

May 26, 2017

For registering in Abuja in 2011 and later on Tuesday, Kogi Gov, Yajaya Bello has been iffically tagged a criminal by the Independent National Electoral Commission.

The governor would have faced criminal charges but for his constitutional immunity.

According to INEC on Thursday, Bello acted “illegally” to have registered for voter’s card in Abuja and Kogi.

“The Governor’s double registration and doing so outside INEC’s designated centres are both illegal,” INEC’s national commissioner and chairman voter education committee, Solomon Soyebi, said on Thursday.

The commission denied authorising any staff or citizen to “re-register him or any citizen or to do so outside our designated CVR centres”.

The governor’s illegality hit the public when photographs showed him being registered for by INEC officials in his office in Lokoja Tuesday.

Soyebi said Gov. Bello was first registered at Wuse Zone 4, Abuja, on January 30, 2011, but illegally did so again on May 23, during the on-going continuous voters registration exercise.

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“The commission is taking disciplinary action against the INEC staff involved,” he said.

“As for the State Governor, Section 308(1) (a) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended) precludes INEC from prosecuting him while in office.”

But a pressure group, Kogi For Change, in a statement signed by its chairman, Omeiza Yakubu, said it would take legal action against the illegality.

“As a matter of fact we have decided as a group to take the matter to talk. It is a criminal offence to engage in double registration,” the group said.

The commission, however, took some action.

“INEC wishes to state that it has cancelled his second and illegal registration forthwith because our Electoral Law and the Commission’s guidelines make no exception for anyone to register more than once and outside the designated areas,” Soyebi said.

But Bello’s spokesperson Kingsley Fanwo said the governor registered again because INEC has yet to transfer his voter’s card from Abuja to Kogi.

INEC is silent on that, though.