ABUJA – As part of measures to ensure certainty with regards to the conduct of elections in the country, the Independent National Electoral Commission INEC has fixed Saturday, February 16, 2019 for the Presidential and National Assembly elections.
Equally, the Governorship/State Assembly/Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections will hold on Saturday, March 2, 2019.
INEC National Commissioner in charge of the South West, Prince Solomon Soyebi announced this on Thursday in Abuja during a media interface.
“In Nigeria, the constitution provides for elections to hold not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days to the end of the incumbent’s tenure.
In order to ensure certainty in our dates for elections, and to allow for proper planning by the Commission, political parties, security agencies, candidates and all stakeholders, the Commission has decided to fix the date for the National Elections for the third Saturday in February of the election year, followed by State elections two weeks later.
“To that extent, the 2019 Presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, 16th February 2019, while the Governorship/State Assembly/Federal Capital Territory Area Council Elections will hold on Saturday 2nd March 2019”, he disclosed.
According to him, “Our democracy is maturing and the Commission believes that there should be certainty with regard to the timetable for elections.
For instance, in the United States, general elections always hold on the second Tuesday of November in the election year. In Ghana, it’s the 7th of December of the election year, while in other places like Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica and Switzerland, the dates are also known in advance”.
23 Indicted Officials arraigned, Placed on Half Salary
INEC added that following the arraignment of 23 of its officials who were indicted by the report of a probe panel on the Rivers state rerun elections, it has decided to place the officials on half salary in line with relevant regulations.
“The Commission has also received a Report from the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) of the Federation, informing us that 23 Electoral Officers indicted over the investigation into the 10th December Rivers Re-run elections have been charged to court.
“The Commission has repeatedly said that it will cooperate with security agencies for the prosecution of any of our staff found to have violated the integrity of the electoral process.
“Accordingly, at our meeting today, the Commission decided to apply the provisions of the INEC Terms and Conditions of Service to all those charged to court, since it constitutes gross misconduct.
The penalty for this is interdiction. All the 23 Electoral Officers will be placed on half salary and will not report for duty pending the determination of their respective cases by the court”, Soyebi stated.
On the 202 officials indicted by the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission EFCC, INEC said it would for now defer disciplinary action on them.
“You would recall that last week, we informed you that a decision would be taken this week on the recommendation by the Disciplinary Committee on staff members indicted by the EFCC Report for misconduct during the 2015 General Elections.
However, in view of the fact that some of the staff are also among those being prosecuted by the DPP, the Commission has decided to defer its decision on the EFCC Report to enable us reconcile the EFCC/DPP reports.
“We wish to assure all Nigerians that the Commission will remain fully committed to the sanctity of the electoral process and will never protect any of its staff, no matter highly placed, found to have violated the provisions of the Electoral Act and our guidelines”, Soyebi added.
INEC said it would however continue its routine consultations with stakeholders, and has decided to hold the next regular quarterly meetings with political parties on March 14, Civil Society Organizations on March 15; the Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security (ICCES) on March 17 and media organizations on March 21.
84 Political Associations seeking Registration as Parties
Soyebi also added that no fewer than 84 political associations are now seeking registration as political parties.
He disclosed that the Advanced Peoples Democratic Party APDP is one of such associations but decline to name its sponsors.
(Vanguard)