Kogi: INEC to Conduct supplementary election in 55 polling Units

BY Boluwaji Obahopo

The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has declared readiness to conduct a credible supplementary election for Kogi West senatorial district and Ajaokuta Federal constituency, both in Kogi State.

State Resident Electoral Commission, REC, Prof. James Apam who made this known on Tuesday in Lokoja said the supplementary election will hold in 75 polling units in the two affected constituency.

Giving the breakdown at a stakeholders meeting, Apam said the elections will be held in 53 polling units for Kogi West, while Ajaokuta federal constituency will be in 22 polling units.

“In Kogi West what we did was to apply the ‘Margin of Lead Principle’, which stipulated that when the differences in the margin between the leading candidate and runner up are not up to the number of cancelled votes, a supplementary election will be held in those areas.

“The leading party (APC) is leading with 22,000 votes while the registered voters in cancelled areas are 45,767; hence the need for the supplementary election.

“For Ajaokuta federal constituency, the Appeal court asked us to conduct the election in those 22 polling units within 60 days, because the Presiding officers did not sign the result sheets for the election in those areas; and the 60 days had almost elapsed.”

Apam, however, said close to 200 INEC officers (staff and ad-hoc) will be in charge of the elections; stressing that university professors will still be used as collation officers both at the wards and local government area collations centres.

However, many of the stakeholders indicated the police and political class for what they described as a show of shame in the last governorship election; urging the security personnel to brace up in order to forestall such occurrence in the Saturday elections.

Both the religions bodies, Civil Society groups and other stakeholders indicted the police, saying the police failed the Kogi People in their last election outing.