TheCable

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says all outstanding rerun elections will be held on Saturday, January 25.

In a statement by Festus Okoye, INEC’s national commissioner for information and voter education, the commission said a total of 807 post-election petitions were filed at different tribunals.

It said 582 petitions were dismissed while 183 were withdrawn by petitioners and certificates of return were issued in 12 cases.

INEC said there were about 30 court-ordered rerun and supplementary elections out of which two have been conducted on November 30.

It noted that there are 28 outstanding court-ordered elections distributed across 12 states of the federation.

According to the commission, in many cases, the rerun elections will be conducted in a few polling units, adding that additional details of affected areas, activities and timelines will be communicated to the public later.

“There are, so far, 30 such court-ordered rerun and supplementary rerun elections. Two of these namely, the rerun election for the Ajaokuta federal constituency and the supplementary rerun election for the Kogi west senatorial district were conducted on November 30, 2019.

“Consequently. there are 28 court-ordered elections still outstanding which are distributed across 12 states of the federation.

“The break down comprises one senatorial district out of 109; 12 federal constituencies out of 360 and 15 state assembly constituencies out of 991.

“In many of the cases, elections are to be rerun in only a few polling units. The commission will make available further details of the affected areas, including the polling units on its website in due course.

“After consideration of several issues surrounding the rerun elections, including the time needed for preparations, establishing the full details of the affected areas from court judgments as well as the intervention of the Yuletide, the commission has decided to hold all the 28 outstanding court-ordered rerun elections on Saturday, January 25, 2020.”

The commission said further details and timelines will be published later.