INEC holds bye-election in Agwara constituency, Niger, Jan 25

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Niger State has fixed the rerun election for Agwara Constituency for Saturday, January 25, 2020, adding that the state’s chapter of the All Progressives Congress (APC) will not be participating in the rerun election.

The State’s Resident Electoral Commissioner(REC) Prof. Sam Egwu stated this on Thursday at a stakeholders general meeting held at the conference hall of INEC’s office in Minna, the state capital, adding that 12 political parties will be participating in the election.

According to him, the participating political parties include ACD, ADC, AGA, DA, GPN, KP, PPN, PT, SDP, PDP, APGA and ADP, saying that APC would not be participating in the election because the party, in conjunction with its candidate who was challenged in court shortly after last year’s general elections.

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He said, “APC was challenged in court over its candidate, the election petition tribunal ruled against the APC which was appealed and the Appeal court cancelled the election and called for a rerun of the election.

“And if a party does not scrutinize its candidate well before the election, the party forfeits the opportunity to take part in the rerun election which is why the APC would not be participating in the rerun,” Egwu maintained.

He, however, added that the commission would not be using any ad-hoc staff but only the staff of the commission, stressing that “we are well prepared for the rerun election in the state.

The INEC boss, stated further that the election requires a lot of preparations which was why the Commission called for the meeting to rub minds with a wide spectrum of stakeholders.

Accordingly, he said ‘I would like to say here that we are going to rely on the internal staff of INEC for the conduct of the election and for this reason,  no ad-hoc staff would be used”.

“We have 36, 411 registered voters with 59 polling units, 65 voters points, 279 Adhoc staff purely INEC staff. Collation officers are likely to be from federal institutions and not INEC staff,” he declared.

Meanwhile, the REC also added that they were waiting to be communicated to by the Speaker of the House of Representatives, in Abuja, Rt. Hon. Femi Gbajabiamila on the vacant seat of one of the representatives from Niger state who died recently after which they will start preparation for the rerun election of the Federal Constituency from the state in order to fill the vacant seat at the National Assembly Abuja.

He, however, explained that the campaigns amongst the candidatures of the political parties fielding candidates for the election begin officially 90 days from the day the message was communicated to the INEC, by the Speaker, House of Representatives, Abuja.

Speaking further on the issue of security, during the forthcoming State’s Constituency election in the Agwara, Egwu, pointed out that one of the biggest challenges was to evenly spread security personnel at the polling units whenever the election was going on.

He disclosed that the discussions on the adequate deployment of security personnel during the forthcoming elections especially by the authorities of the State’s Police Command had begun with the INEC, in the state.

He assured that, in the deployment of Security personnel, we will ensure the spread of security men to all polling units during the elections.