INEC raises concern over pre-election litigations ahead of Bayelsa, Kogi, Imo polls

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), has raised concerns over pre-election litigations which it says would pose a challenge ahead of the off-season governorship polls in Bayelsa, Kogi, and Imo States.

Chairman of the Commission, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who raised the alarm during the agency’s quarterly meeting with political parties in Abuja on Tuesday, expressed concern about recent court judgments and orders concerning nomination, substitution, or disqualification of candidates after all the sensitive materials have been printed by the electoral body.

“The reprinting of the materials in compliance with court orders within a short period of time is not only expensive, but the management of the process is very challenging,” Yakubu said.

“Although the Commission has already published the final list of candidates for the three states, four recent court orders have compelled us to review the list. These changes have been reflected in the updated list of parties and candidates on our website.

“However, this decision is without prejudice to any pending appeal by the affected candidates or their political parties.”

The INEC Chairman also lamented the fact that not all the political parties have nominated agents for all the polling units and collation centres in the three states.

“Political parties have uploaded the names of their polling and collation agents to the dedicated web portal.

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“As I informed Nigerians at the meeting with our Resident Electoral Commissions last week, a total of 137,934 agents made up of 130,093 polling and 7,841 collation agents have already been uploaded to the portal.

“However, not all the political parties have nominated agents for all the polling units and even the collation centres in the three states.

“In the next few days, the commission will publish the detailed distribution of agents uploaded by all political parties for public information.

“I urge you to consider the submission of names of agents as important as the nomination of candidates for election,” he advised.

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