INEC announces dates for Rivers, Imo re-run polls today

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said it would fix dates for suspended rerun elections in Rivers, Imo, Kogi and Kano states today (Thursday).

The Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, said this during his remark at the opening of the second quarterly meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners in Abuja on Wednesday.

Already, he said the commission was consulting with those he described as critical stakeholders, including leaders of political parties and security agencies, in the affected states.

He stated that the commission was also expected to have a meeting with leaders of political parties in Abuja on Thursday before arriving at the dates for the rerun elections.

The reruns were ordered by courts, but were suspended by the commission due to outbreak of violence.

Yakubu gave the assurance that the reruns in the four states would be conducted before July 31.

He told the RECs, 'There are a number of issues to be discussed, though this is a regular meeting, notably, the preparations for the forthcoming elections, the conclusion of reruns in Rivers, Kano, Imo and Kogi states.

'We have started the processes of consultation to determine the date for the conclusion of the rerun elections in the four states that I have mentioned not later than July 31. We have met with political parties and security agencies.

'Today, it is the turn of Resident Electoral Commissioners and thereafter, tomorrow (Thursday), we shall have the national stakeholders' forum, involving political parties, candidates involved in the elections, the security agencies, REC, the civil society organisations and the media, to fix a date for the exercise.

'Secondly, we are also going to discuss preparations for the forthcoming end-of-tenure governorship elections in Edo on September 10 and Ondo on November 26.'

He explained that the commission had concluded the Continuous Voter Registration in the two states, where he said no fewer than 100,000 people were registered.

Yakubu said the commission was presently doing de-duplication to ensure that there were no multiple registrants before distributing permanent voter's cards to the registrants