The National Chairman of the party, Chief John Odigie-Oyegun urged party leaders and stakeholders to accept the decision of the party leadership and ensure the party comes out victorious.
Odigie-Oyegun explained that the decision to nominate Bello was borne out of the need to conform to the electoral laws and to ensure cohesion and fairness.
He eulogized the late Prince Audu as the face of the party in the state, saying the party will miss his leadership qualities greatly.
While accepting the party’s nomination, Bello pledged to ensure immediate reconciliation of all aggrieved persons in the party, saying he was more than prepared to lead the party to a resounding victory on December 5. He called on all the party leaders to work with him to take the party to higher heights.
Yahaya Bello pledged to immortalize the late Prince Audu, describing him as a great leader who contributed immensely to the development of Kogi State while he was governor. He urged the youths of the state to team up with him to foster a united Kogi State.
Few minutes after Bello was unveiled, Faleke formally rejected his nomination as running mate to Bello. Speaking to newsmen outside the party secretariat, he said: “We met for about two hours as you have observed and of course, we discovered that the meeting that we were invited for was just a mere briefing rather than it being where we could have deliberated and solved the quagmire we find ourselves in. We were only briefed about the position of the party.
“The party told us that we have nominated Alhaji Yahaya Bello. And of course, we made it clear as the political family of Prince Abubakar Audu; we told them that it is not acceptable and we are not going with it and I personally observed that my name has been submitted to INEC as deputy governorship candidate to pair with Alhaji Yahaya Bello and I told the national chairman in clear words that ‘Mr. Chairman, I have submitted a letter this morning distancing myself from that decision; that on no ground will I want to be associated with the decision of the party to pair me with Alhaji Yahaya Bello because I am already governor-elect.
“I also told him, Mr. Chairman, for us as a family, Kogi State political family, we are not taking part in that election, my name cannot be submitted because I was not even consulted in the first instance. The Governor-elect cannot yet become another deputy governorship candidate.”
Faleke who is currently a member of the House of Representatives also stated that it was out of place for Bello to join in the race midway as he was not part of it from the start.
He regretted that the party discarded all his appeal to go to court to persuade INEC to declare him winner of the election.
“I want to make it very clear that Alhaji Yahaya Bello did not take part in all our campaign processes and we are only contesting election in 91 polling units out of about 2, 548 polling units and we have made it very clear that if they go ahead to conduct election because I have pulled out that election would be challenged in the court of law, it will be null and void.
“We won’t be addressing you today if the party chose the path of honour. The path of honour we championed there was for the party to go to court and challenge INEC and Mr. Chairman told us directly without considering it twice that the party will not go to court and since the party is not going to court, we have taken it upon ourselves as our right to defend ourselves in court and we are challenging the decision”, he said.
At press time, leaders of the party were locked in a meeting with Bello to find a possible replacement for Faleke as running mate.