INEC To Hold Supplementary Elections In 5 States

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Nigeria is holding supplementary governorship and House of Assembly elections in Abia, Imo, Taraba, Delta and Kogi States.

INEC had deployed three National Commissioners and three Resident Electoral Commissioners (REC), to beef up the human capacity of the commission for the polls, assuring that the election will be peaceful, free and fair.

Security has also been beefed up in the three states where the governorship election of April 11 was declared inconclusive by the electoral body after collation of some results.

Abia Re-run

In Abia, the supplementary election would be between Okezie Ikpeazu of Peoples Democratic Party and Alex Otti of the All Progressives Grand Alliance (APGA).

It will hold in nine Local Government Areas in some selected polling units in Aba North and South, Osisioma, Ugwunagbo, Umuahia north, Isiala Ngwa North, Obingwa, Ohafia and Ikwuano.

There had been tension over alleged intimidation and harassment of voters by some political thugs, believed to be loyal to one of the candidates.

The election results released so far indicate a close race, between the PDP candidate and the candidate of APGA.

Imo Supplementary

In Taraba and Imo States, supplementary elections will hold in some constituencies in the states houses of assembly.

In Imo State, south-east Nigeria, the governorship poll was declared inconclusive following the cancellation of results in more than 250 polling units in 23 of the 27 local government areas.

The re-run is between Governor Rochas Okorocha of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and Emeka Ihedioha of the PDP.

Before INEC’s decision on April 12, the incumbent Governor and the APC candidate was leading.

Taraba Supplementary

In Taraba State, Nigeria’s north-east region, the contest is between the candidate of the PDP, Darius Ishaku and that of the APC, Senator Aisha Alhassan.

After collating the results from 16 out of the 17 Local Government Areas of the state in the April 11 governorship election, the Taraba State Returning Officer for the governorship election, Muhammadu Kyari, declared the election inconclusive.

He said that the decision was taken because the number of cancelled votes was above the gap between the PDP candidate who came first and the APC candidate who came second.

Before the election was declared inconclusive, Mr Ishaku had polled 317, 198 while Senator Aisha had 262, 383 votes.

Overall, 2,029 polling units are involved and 1,258,362 registered voters are expected to take part in the elections.