In a closely watched and keenly contested race, the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Usman Ododo, has been declared the winner of the November 11, 2023, Kogi State Governorship Election, by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC).

The State Returning Officer, Prof Johnson Urama, declared Ododo as the winner at 10:23 pm on Sunday, announcing that he had satisfied the legal requirements for victory.

“Ahmed Usman Ododo of APC, having satisfied the requirement of the law is hereby declared the winner and is returned elected,” Urama declared.

Ododo secured a decisive win with 446,237 votes, defeating his closest rival, Murtala Ajaka of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), who scored 259,052 votes. Dino Melaye of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) polled 46,362 votes. The APC candidate dominated the election by winning over half of the 21 local government areas (LGAs) in the state.

The victory solidifies Ododo’s position as the governor-elect and comes after results from the 21 LGAs were collated late on Sunday. Ododo, a former Auditor General of Local Government in Kogi under Governor Yahaya Bello, was the anointed candidate of the outgoing governor, who is completing his double terms of eight years.

However, the election was not without controversy. Melaye and some civil rights groups raised concerns over “filled result sheets” in the Ogori/Magongo Local Government Area. Melaye also called for the suspension of the exercise citing violence and vote-buying. In response, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) suspended the election in nine wards in the local government area.

Late on Sunday, INEC announced that fresh polls would be conducted in 59 polling units in Ogori/Magongo on November 18, 2023. INEC specified that the decision to hold fresh elections is contingent on the Returning Officer’s determination of the application of the Margin of Lead Principle.

In his declaration, Prof Johnson Urama noted that the total number of Permanent Voter Cards in the affected polling units was insignificant in comparison to the substantial lead Ododo had over his closest rival. This suggested that the initially scheduled elections in the 59 polling units would no longer be held.

Despite the outcome, both Ajaka and Melaye have rejected the results, expressing disappointment in INEC and accusing security agencies of collusion with the ruling APC in Kogi.

The final results for the 21 LGAs showed a total of 1,932,474 registered voters, 794,500 accredited voters, and a total valid vote count of 782,289. The rejected votes amounted to 9,601, making the total votes cast 791,890.

However, Ajaka had said earlier it would be a waste of time to challenge the outcome of the poll in court if he loses to Usman Ododo. He alleged that the election was rigged with the support of the INEC.

Every company shareholder would prefer to hire a manager or a CEO who will save the company more money and not embark on a spending spree to exhaust the company’s finances, this is just common sense.

There are some spending the Nigerian government has been embarking on lately that are totally unnecessary and frivolous; some although necessary but due to the economic phase the country is in now calls for a pause on it. 

It was even one of the core political manifestos which President Bola Ahmed TINUBU built on during his campaign that he would reduce the cost of governance thereby cutting down the cost the Nigerian government spends on staffing, project execution and other pecks but with the trajectory the presidency have been going since they were inaugurated into power I doubt if that promise was really a promise or just a fluke. 

This government arguably has the highest number of cabinet members in the history of Nigeria having appointed 42 ministers and a lot of other political appointments have been made and they are not stopping yet. Every day someone is appointed a special assistant to the president on xyz or senior special assistant to the president on xyz. You do not need a special intellectual ability to understand that most of these appointments are totally unnecessary; they are dashed out just for political compensation; making sure that the national cake goes around to those who contributed a thing or two for his election, but it is totally insensitive to be doing this at the moment. 

Most of the political portfolios handed over to these recent appointees overlap with portfolios already handed down to other appointees. Jokes are currently making rounds on social media that with the way the presidency is sharing appointments every Nigerian will get an appointment, you will just have to create the portfolio for yourself. Let’s not forget that these appointees are to be paid salaries, allowances and other mouth-watering pecks that come with that office, it is not cheap. 

These are some of the funny appointments the president has made and is yet to make; 

• Special Assistant on Exports
• Senior Special Assistant on inflation
• Coordinating Adviser on productivity
• Technical Adviser on Remittances
• Senior Special Assistant on Naira
• Head of Policy crude oil output
• Implementation Coordinator Oransanya Report (credit; Kalu Ajah on X). 
• There are special assistants and senior special assistants to the presidency on everything now.

The presidency really needs to pay attention to their spending habits and take it easy on extravagant spending because Nigeria is broke. Just a few weeks ago, the president went to New York and went alongside tens of his aides and they spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on transportation, accommodation and other logistic costs for that trip alone. 

The legislature that ought to call the executive to order on their spending habit, unfortunately, wants to take a slice of the national cake. The legislators want an official car of over 150 million naira cost per person. This is insane. 

The economy has been nose-diving and has gone from bad to worse due to the political and economic decisions the presidency has taken since they came into power; first, they removed the fuel subsidy, secondly, they embarked on devaluation of the naira, still on that they are expending much on governance. They really need to go back to the drawing board and re-strategize. We do not have the money that you all are chopping like this. You cannot be borrowing to live lavishly because you know that in the next 4 or 8 years you will leave the debt for another person. 

The presidency maybe they have been disconnected from the realities on the ground, but they should pity Nigerians, please cut down the cost of governance, Nigeria is broke, and everyone is suffering. 

The Guilty Mind

In the criminal justice system, the guilty mind is one of the two essential ingredients that must be available before a crime is said to have been committed. Having committed an act which could be criminal in nature is not enough to ground the conviction of the suspect, the prosecutor must prove beyond reasonable doubt that the suspect had the guilty mind or had the intent to carry out the guilty act before conviction for the crime can be granted. This guilty mind is sometimes called “criminal intent” but in the legal register, this is often referred to as the “mens rea”.

The word mens rea is of Latin origin and when loosely translated into English it means “guilty mind”. It is simply the mental state of a defendant who is accused of committing a crime. There must be a litmus test to prove that the guilty mind was present on the accused at the time the crime was committed. 

By the implication of the principle of mens rea, it stipulates that doing something by accident does not qualify as a crime. Therefore, if you mistakenly kill someone by accident, you ought to be convicted of murder but if it cannot be established that you have the prior intention to kill that person you will be charged with a lesser offense which is manslaughter. 

The act itself does not qualify as a crime, it is the intention that counts but there is an exception to this defense of not having the criminal intent to commit the act one of the exceptions is that if you mistakenly do an act and you become nonchalant about it, even if you have no previous intention you will still be held for the full offense. 

There is a case that comes to mind to buttress this exception and it is the case of Fagan v Metropolitan Police Commissioner, (1969). What happened in the case was that Mr Faggan accidentally drove his car onto the feet of a police officer he had no prior intention to ram into the police officer, it happened by accident, in that instance, he has not committed an assault on the policeman since there was no intention to do that. The twist to the story is that Mr Faggan, having noticed that he accidentally rammed into a policeman decided not to immediately remove the car from the body of the policeman. 

At prosecution for assaulting a policeman, Mr Faggan pleaded the defense of lack of the prior intention to commit the crime but the court held that although it has been established that he had no prior intention to commit the offense deciding to leave the car there on the body of the policeman was a combination of act and intention, which meant he was guilty of the offense.