PDP’s Duoye Diri and Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo emerged as Governor and Deputy Governor of Bayelsa state after having lost to APC’s David Lyon and Degi Biobarakuma by a landslide in the 2019 Bayelsa governorship election. The events leading up to that seemed to put the public into confusion as to the basis of that development. This article provides some light on it.
In November of 2019, the Bayelsa state governorship election was held and in the end, the APC polled 352,552 votes while the PDP secured 143,172 votes. The election was then contested by PDP on the ground that Biobarakuma Degi, David Lyon’s deputy was found guilty of possessing ‘forged’ certificates or school certificates riddled with inconsistencies. The PDP alleged that Degi’s name was written as Degi Biobara in his primary school certificate, Adegi Biobarakumo, in his secondary school certificate, he was called Degi Biobarakuma in the University and his MBA certificate bore the name Degi Biobarakuma Wangaha. This led to his disqualification by the Federal High Court in Abuja, from running in the governorship election on November 12, 2019.
The Appeal Court, however, upturned the judgment of the Federal High Court holding that a case of forgery was not established against Degi because he had done a ‘change of name’ and published it in a national newspaper as required by law.
The matter was appealed to the Supreme Court and the apex court, in its judgment, agreed with the judgment of the Federal High Court that the case of forgery had been established in the documents presented by Degi. It held that the documents were products of forgery and that Degi, Lyon’s running mate, violated Section 182(1)(j) of the 1999 Constitution which states that “No person shall be qualified for election to the office of Governor of a State if …(j) he has presented a forged certificate to the Independent National Electoral Commission.”
The judgment of the apex court affected both Lyon and Degi because both men ran on a joint ticket. Thus, they were both disqualified from the election and the question remained as to who would occupy the seat of the governor and deputy governor.
The Supreme Court’s ruling was that an INEC certificate of return should be issued to the candidate who had the second-highest number of votes cast, 25% of which must be in two-thirds of the local governments as required by the section 179(2)(b) constitution. Given the official election figures and the fact that Bayelsa state has only 8 local governments, six of which the APC was victorious in, there was a lack of clarity as to whether PDP candidate, which had the second-highest number of votes, achieved the ‘spread’ required by the constitution to be inaugurated, governor.
INEC took another view of things, however. It determined that since Degi’s votes were discounted by the judgment, Diri had become the first placed candidate and achieved the constitutionally required ‘spread’.
In the words of the INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu:
“Without the votes scored by the APC, whose candidates were deemed not to have participated in the election, the total number of lawful and valid votes cast in the election now stand at 146,999. Out of this figure, the candidate of the PDP scored the highest number of lawful votes with 143, 172. Similarly, the party has scored more than 25% of the lawful votes cast in all the eight local government areas of the state.
As such, Douye Diri and Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo of the PDP were declared winners of the Bayelsa state gubernatorial election and were returned elected as Governor and Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State respectively. One may describe the interpretation given by INEC as a manipulation of the instruction of the Court and the provision of the law but Douye Diri and Lawrence Ewhrudjakpo of the PDP sit as Governor and Deputy Governor of Bayelsa State today.
Written by Mbachu Chinenye Esq.
