By Emmanuel Oloniruha/ Martins Abochol
Abuja, March 26, 2019
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has fixed March 28 for the conduct of governorship supplementary election in Adamawa.
INEC on Tuesday, in a notice posted on its twitter handle, @inecnigeria, said that the decision followed the suspension of the court order stopping it from conducting same.
The notice read: “Following the discharge of the injunction, which stopped the governorship supplementary election in Adamawa state in the case filed by the Movement for the Restoration and Defence of Democracy (MRDD), INEC will now conduct the election on Thursday, March 28.
“The poll will hold from 8a.m to 2 p.m in 29 Registration Areas (RAs), 44 Polling Units across14 Local Government Areas (LGAs) with a total number of 40, 988 registered voters.”
The INEC had fixed March 23, 2019 as the date of the rerun after declaring the earlier election inconclusive but the court stopped the conduct of the election in the state pending the determination of a suit before it.
The said suit was filed by Eric Thema of the MRDD to challenge the omission of his party logo from the ballot papers used for the first governorship election held on March 9, 2019, stating that it affected the chances of Thema at the polls.
Justice Abdulaaziz Waziri of Yola State High court on Tuesday lifted the interlocutory injunction restraining INEC from conducting the supplementary governorship elections in Adamawa.
The Peoples Democratic Party candidate, Hammadu Fintiri, was leading with a 32,476-vote margin from the first election after polling 367,471 votes while the candidate of the All Progressives Congress (APC) Jubrilla Bindow had 334,995 votes.
Meanwhile, the APC in Adamawa has rejected the new date, March 28, fixed by the INEC for the supplementary Governorship election in the state.
The Organising Secretary of the party, Alhaji Ahmed Lawal, announced the party’s decision in an interview with the NAN in Yola on Tuesday.
Lawal said that INEC did not consult the party before fixing the new date for the poll.
He alleged that information had filtered out earlier that the election would be held on Thursday, March 28.
“INEC failed to consult with political parties involved in this election before going ahead to fix a new date for the re-run.
“We, therefore, became suspicious due to rumours in town earlier that supplementary election would be conducted on Thursday and it turned out to be true.
“We are not afraid of re-run election but INEC should have done the right thing.
“How can you fix an election on a working day. Are civil servants not going to participate in the election?
“We are going to forward our protest on the matter to INEC,’’ he said.
NAN reports that an Adamawa High Court sitting in Yola had earlier vacated an order restraining INEC from conducting a supplementary election in the state.
INEC, therefore, fixed March 28 for the election.
