The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has announced dates
for 2019 general elections.
In a statement posted on its website Thursday, the electoral commission
said it was making the announcements well ahead “in order to ensure
certainty in our dates for elections, and to allow for proper planning by
the Commission, political parties, security agencies, candidates and all
stakeholders”.
“To that extent, the 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections
will hold on Saturday, 16th February 2019, while the Governorship/State
Assembly/Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections will hold on
Saturday 2nd March 2019.”
The commission also announced that 23 of its electoral officers being
prosecuted for various electoral offences will be placed on half salary
and will not report for duty pending the determination of their respective
cases by the court.
Read the full statement:
Gentlemen of the Press,
You are all welcome to yet another briefing, which is in fulfillment of
our pledge to regularly brief the public on the Commission’s activities.
1. Our democracy is maturing and the Commission believes that there should
be certainty with regard to the timetable for elections. For instance, in
the United States, general elections always hold on the second PRESS
Tuesday of November in the election year. In Ghana, it’s the 7th of
December of the election year, while in other places like Mexico, Norway,
Sweden, Costa Rica and Switzerland, the In Nigeria, the constitution
provides for elections to hold not earlier than 150 days and not later
than 30 days to the end of the incumbent’s tenure. In order to ensure
certainty in our dates for elections, and to allow for proper planning by
the Commission, political parties, security agencies, candidates and all
stakeholders, the Commission has decided to fix the date for the National
Elections for the third Saturday in February of the election year,
followed by State elections two weeks later. To that extent, the 2019
Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, 16th
February 2019, while the Governorship/State Assembly/Federal Capital
Territory Area Council Elections will hold on Saturday 2nd March 2019.
2. The Commission has also received a Report from the Director of Public
Prosecution (DPP) of the Federation, informing us that 23 Electoral
Officers indicted over the investigation into the 10th December Rivers
Re-run elections have been charged to court. The Commission has repeatedly
said that it will cooperate with security agencies for the prosecution of
any of our staff found to have violated the integrity of the electoral
process. Accordingly, at our meeting today, the Commission decided to
apply the provisions of the INEC Terms and Conditions of Service to all
those charged to court, since it constitutes gross misconduct. The penalty
for this is interdiction. All the 23 Electoral Officers will be placed on
half salary and will not report for duty pending the determination of
their respective cases by the court.
3. Ladies and gentlemen, you will recall that last week, we informed you
that a decision would be taken this week on the recommendation by the
Disciplinary Committee on staff members indicted by the EFCC Report for
misconduct during the 2015 General Elections. However, in view of the fact
that some of the staff are also among those being prosecuted by the DPP,
the Commission has decided to defer its decision on the EFCC Report to
enable us reconcile the EFCC/DPP reports.
4. And as part of our routine consultations with our stakeholders, the
Commission has decided to hold the next regular quarterly meetings with
stakeholders as follows:
A. Tuesday 14th March –Meeting with Political Parties
B. Wednesday 15th March – Meeting with Civil Society Organizations
C. Friday 17th March – Meeting of the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee
on Election Security (ICCES).
D. Monday March 21 – Meeting with Media organizations. Our invitations
have been sent to the respective stakeholders
5. We wish to assure all Nigerians that the Commission will remain fully
committed to the sanctity of the electoral process and will never protect
any of its staff, no matter highly placed, found to have violated the
provisions of the Electoral Act and our guidelines.
Prince Solomon Soyebi
National Commissioner (In charge of South West)
March 9, 2017.