The Independent National Electoral
Commission on Thursday in Abuja said that it had fixed December 10 for
rerun elections in Rivers State.
The announcement, which was made by the
Secretary to the Commission, Mrs. Augusta Ogakwu, came a day after the
Senate threatened to abandon plenary if the commission refused to
organise the election and other rerun elections in the country before
December 10.
The Senate had said that the refusal of
the electoral body to conduct the elections was depriving the people of
the areas involved of having representatives in both chambers of the
National Assembly.
Though INEC said it was not moved by the
threat of the boycott of the plenary, it however said that the fixing
of the dates for the elections was done after what it described as
“extensive consultations.”
Rivers State does not have a single
senator in the Senate, while the state still has some vacant seats in
the House of Representatives and the state House of Assembly.
Apart from Rivers State, Ogakwu said that the commission would conduct elections in Lagos and the Federal Capital Territory.
The commission stated that election into
a vacant seat in the House of Representatives from Lagos State and the
councillorship election in the FCT, according to Ogawku, would hold
also on December 3.
The commission had on Wednesday demanded
an undertaking from political parties that they would not cause any
mayhem anytime it fixed the rerun elections in Rivers State.
It said there was no way it would be
able to conduct a free, fair, credible and acceptable election in the
state when political parties were not ready to sheathe their swords.
The Chief Press Secretary to the
Chairman of the commission, Mr. Rotimi Oyekanmi, stated the commission’s
position in an interview with our correspondent.
Oyekanmi said though the commission
appreciated the Senate’s concern, the electoral body did not need the
ultimatum before doing the right thing.
He said, “If you can recall, there was
an election in March this year in the state during which violence was
unleashed on our officials.
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