hold supplementary elections on March 23 2019, following inconclusive
Governorship and State House of Assembly elections declared in some
states.
INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education
Committee, Festus Okoye, disclosed this on Tuesday night in a statement at
the end of the commission’s meeting in Abuja.
According to him, the commission met on Monday and reviewed the conduct of
the 29 Governorship and 991 state constituency elections held on 9th March
2019 and that in all, the commission declared winners in the Governorship
elections in 22 states.
“However, the Returning Officers (ROs) in Adamawa, Bauchi, Benue, Kano,
Plateau and Sokoto states declared the Governorship elections
inconclusive.
“Consequently, the commission will conduct supplementary elections on
Saturday 23rd March 2019 to conclude the process.
“Supplementary elections will also hold in polling units in all states
where state assembly elections were declared inconclusive and winners
could not be declared.
“Details of the constituencies including number of polling units and
registered voters will be published on our website tomorrow Wednesday 13th
March 2019.
“The elections were declared inconclusive for a combination of reasons,
mainly the discontinuation of use of the Smart Card Readers (SCRs) midway
into the elections or the failure to deploy them, over-voting and
widespread disruption in many polling units.
“In compliance with the Margin of Lead Principle derived from Sections 26
and 53 of the Electoral Act mm (as amended) and paragraph 41(e) and 43(b)
of the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections, the
outcome of these elections could not be determined without conducting
polls in the affected polling units. Hence the commission’s decision to
conduct supplementary elections in line with this principle.
“Furthermore, the commission has considered a report submitted by the
Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Bauchi State on the disruption
of the collation at the Tafawa Balewa LGA collation center, which led to
the cancellation of results for the entire local government.
“The Commission found that there are issues that need further
investigation and has set up a team led by a National Commissioner to
resolve them,” Okoye said.