The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC) will be conducting four by-elections within the next 30 days, its chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, has said.
Yakubu said the time-table and schedule of activities for the by-elections will be released tomorrow.
They are: the National Assembly elections in respect of Bauchi South, Katsina North and the Lokoja/Koton Karfe Federal Constituency in Kogi State. The fourth one is in respect of Obudu I State Constituency.
The seats were declared vacant by the National Assembly and state assembly.
The INEC boss, who spoke yesterday 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 are ongoing.
He said: “The commission is set to conduct by-elections to fill the vacancies in the four constituencies, which have 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 detailed timetable and scheduled of activities will be released on Friday this week,” he added.
The by-elections, he said, would also serve as a test ground for the various innovations and improvement made on the process ahead of the Osun governorship poll scheduled for Saturday, September 22, 2018.
“These by-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.
Yakubu said: “We wish to once again reassure Nigerians that the commission will continue to improve the quality of our elections drawing from the lessons learnt from the collective experience of having conducted elections into 181 constituencies since the 2015 general elections made up of six governorship elections, 11 senatorial districts, 23 federal constituencies, 73 state constituencies and 68 area council constituencies in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT).”
On the meeting with the RECs, Yakubu said the discussions will focus mainly on the ongoing Continuous Voters’ Registration (CVR) exercise.
He explained that after wide ranging consultations with stakeholders, the exercise will be suspended on August 17, 2018.
“So far, a total of 10,292,647 Nigerians have been registered as at Friday, July 13, 2018,” he said.
Yakubu assured registered voters that their PVCs would be available for collection before the 2019 general elections.