Senate Concerned With Inec’s Inability To Conclude Senatorial Elections

SAN FRANCISCO, April 27 (THEWILL) – The Senate has raised an alarm over pending senatorial re-run elections in six senatorial districts of the country to complete the number of Senators in the upper legislative house.

Senator representing Bayelsa East, Ben Murray-Bruce, raised a Point of Order at plenary on Wednesday and posited that the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) must explain to the Senate why the pending re-run elections had not been conducted.

Bruce noted that the non-representation of some states in the Senate violated Section 48 of the 1999 Constitution, which provides that: “The Senate shall consist of three senators from each state and one from the Federal Capital Territory, Abuja.”

“We have not had representation in this chamber from Rivers State, part of Anambra, Imo, Kogi and some other states. INEC concluded elections in one week in Federal Capital Territory (FCT) but in these states they had no representation here and it does not make any sense.

“It is a violation of the Constitution; the people of these states have a right to have representation here. The INEC chairman owes us an explanation to explain why these elections have not been concluded.”

Bruce also asked the Senate to take up the issue with the INEC chairman, as the people of the affected areas had a right to be represented in the Senate.

The pending senatorial districts are Kogi East, Anambra Central, Imo North, Rivers East, Rivers West and Rivers South East.

THEWILL recalls that people from Imo North Senatorial District staged a protest on Tuesday, at the National Assembly, to call attention to the delay in conducting the re-run election.

Responding, the Deputy Senate president, Ike Ekweremadu, who presided over plenary, disclosed that he was aware that INEC would meet to fix dates for the pending elections on Thursday.

Story by David Oputah