Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, the chairman of The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has said that the commission will be conducting four bye-elections within the next 30 days.
Yakubu also said that the time-table and schedule of activities for the bye-elections will be made public on Friday.
According to the INEC Chairman, bye elections are, the National Assembly elections in respect of Bauchi South Senatorial district, Katsina North senatorial district and the Lokoja/Koton Karfe Federal constituency in Kogi state. While the fourth one, a state assembly is in respect of Obudu state constituency. The seats were declared vacant by the National Assembly and State Assembly.
The INEC boss, who spoke Wednesday in Abuja at the opening of a regular meeting with the Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja said meetings with stakeholders in the affected states were ongoing.
He said, “the commission is set to conduct bye-elections to fill the vacancies in the four constituencies which have a total of over two (2million) 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 detailed timetable and scheduled of activities will be released on Friday this week,” he added.
According to him, the bye-elections will also serve as a testing ground for the various innovations and improvement made on the electoral process ahead of the Osun governorship election scheduled for Saturday, 22nd September 2018.
“These bye-elections will offer the Commission yet another opportunity to fine-tune our processes and procedures in preparation for the Osun state governorship election and ultimately the 2019 general elections,” he stressed.
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