Inconclusive election: INEC announces date of supplementary election

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will conduct
supplementary election on 23 March in Sokoto, Kano, Adamawa, and
three other states where the March 9 elections are deadlocked.

INEC boss, Mahmood Yakubu

The other states are Benue, Plateau and Bauchi.

Festus Okoye, head of the commission’s information and voter
education committee, announced INEC’s decision on Tuesday in a
statement.

“The Commission met on Tuesday, and reviewed the conduct
of the 29 Governorship and 991 State constituency elections held on 9th
March 2019. In all, the Commission declared winners in the Governorship
elections in 22 states,” he said.

“However, the Returning Officers in Adamawa. Bauchi, Benue, Kano,
Plateau and Sokoto States declared the Governorship elections
inconclusive.

Consequently. the Commission will conduct supplementary
elections on Saturday 23rd March 2019 to conclude the process.

Supplementary elections will also hold in polling units in all States
where State Assembly elections were declared inconclusive and winners
could not be declared.

Details of the constituencies including number of
polling units and registered voters, will be published on our website on Wednesday, 13th March, 2019.

“The elections were declared inconclusive for a combination of
reasons, mainly the discontinuation of use of the Smart Card Readers
midway into the elections or the failure to deploy them, over-voting and
widespread disruption in many polling units.

“Furthermore, the Commission has considered a report submitted by the
Resident Electoral Commissioner for Bauchi State on the disruption of
the collation at the Tafawa Balewa LGA collation centre, which led to
the cancellation of results for the entire local government. The
Commission found that there are issues that need further investigation
and has set up a team led by a National Commissioner to resolve them.