No date yet for N/Assembly supplementary polls — INEC

National Commissioner and Chairman Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, Festus Okoye, said this on Friday in Abuja.

Daily Trust reports that elections in some senatorial zones and federal constituencies were either cancelled or could not hold then due to legal issues or distruption of the process.

According to him, the attention of the commission has been drawn to a news report insinuating that it intends to conduct supplementary elections together with the governorship and state assembly polls that will take place on Saturday, March 18, 2023.

“This is not correct. The commission has not scheduled the conduct of supplementary elections arising from the Presidential and National Assembly elections. For clarity, the supplementary elections will take place on a date to be announced by the commission immediately after the governorship and state assembly elections.

“However, this should not be confused with the two National Assembly elections earlier suspended by the commission and rescheduled to hold along with the governorship and state assembly elections.

“First is the Enugu East Senatorial District election which was countermanded to allow the Labour Party (LP) conduct a fresh primary election to replace its deceased candidate in line with the provision of Section 34(1) of the Electoral Act 2022.

“The second is the Esan Central/Esan West/Igueben Federal Constituency of Edo State following issues with the ballot paper for the election. These are not supplementary but main elections that could not be held earlier.

“The public is advised to disregard any report alluding to the conduct of supplementary elections alongside the governorship and state aseembly elections tomorrow Saturday 18th March 2023,” Okoye said.