Less than three weeks to the November 11 governorship elections in Bayelsa, Imo and Kogi states, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has expressed concerned about the spate of recent judgements and orders of court in respect of the nomination, substitution or disqualification of candidates after all the sensitive materials have been printed.
INEC Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu disclosed this on Tuesday in Abuja at the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Quarterly Consultative Meeting with leaders of political parties.
He lamented that the reprinting of the materials in compliance with court orders within a short period of time was not only expensive but the management of the process was very challenging.
The chairman said with just a little over two weeks to the election, the electoral body was at the concluding stages of our preparations.
Yakuabu stressed that this was the first time that the Commission would be conducting three off-cycle governorship elections simultaneously across different geo-political zones.
The chairman noted that this made possible by the coincidence of the end of tenure of the current holders of the offices which fall within the constitutional timeframe of not earlier than 150 days or later than 30 days before the expiration of their terms of office as enshrined in Section 178(2) of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended).
His words: “On the issue of candidature, the Commission is concerned about the spate of recent judgements and orders of court in respect of the nomination, substitution or disqualification of candidates after all the sensitive materials have been printed.
“Although the Commission has already published the final list of candidates for the three States, four recent court orders have compelled us to review the list. These changes have been reflected in the updated list of parties and candidates on our website.
“However, this decision is without prejudice to any pending appeal by the affected candidates or their political parties.”
Yakubu said INEC State offices have concluded the readiness assessment of their facilities as well as the movement of critical facilities to 56 Local Government offices across the three States.
He revealed that in the next few days, the Commission would publish the detailed distribution of agents uploaded by all political parties for public information.