The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), yesterday, summoned its Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in the 36 states and Abuja, to an emergency meeting.
The meeting came barely four days after the July 14 governorship election in Ekiti State, which observers said, fell short of the acceptable global standard.
The All Progressives Congress (APC) candidate, Dr. Kayode Fayemi was declared governor-elect, but there were allegations of vote buying and other irregularities during the election.
INEC had said that the results would be pasted on every polling units as well as transmitted electronically from the polling units to collation centre.
The meeting might review how far these were successfully implemented. INEC said Ekiti State would be used to test run the electronic transmission of results before the 2019 general elections.
The commission’s Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who addressed the RECs shortly before the closed-door session, announced that the meeting would review the conduct of last Saturday’s Ekiti State governorship election.
“Today’s meeting will not only reflect on that election but also look forward to a number of other elections. We are all aware that the Osun State governorship election is holding on Saturday 22nd September 2018,” Prof. Yakubu further stated.
He said the commission had been notified of vacancies in Bauchi South and Katsina North senatorial districts as well as the Lokoja/Koton Karfe Federal Constituency in Kogi State and Obudu 1 state constituency in Cross River State.
“Consequently, the commission is set to conduct bye-elections to fill the vacancies in the four constituencies which had a total of over two million registered voters spread across 3,355 polling units in 234 wards and 22 Local Government Areas.
“Consultations with stakeholders in the affected states are ongoing.
“Considering the requirement of the law that such elections shall be conducted by the commission within 30 days following the declaration of vacancy, we are planning to conduct all the four elections on the same date,” the INEC chairman further disclosed.
He expressed the hope that the bye-elections would offer INEC another opportunity to fine-tune its processes and procedures in preparation for the Osun State governorship election and the 2019 general elections.
The meeting, according to Prof. Yakubu, would focus mainly on the ongoing Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR) exercise, and particularly srategise on the issue of uncollected Permanent Voters’ Cards (PVCs).
He disclosed that over 10 million Nigerians have been registered as at last Friday, July 13, and assured all new registrants that their PVCs would be ready before the general elections.
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