The chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Prof. Mahmoud Yakubu, has said the commission withdrew 64 Certificates of Return from contestants after court judgements.
He said this on Monday in Abuja at the presentation of certificates of return to Zamfara State governor-elect, deputy governor-elect and National Assembly members.
This followed last Friday Supreme Court’s ruling nullifying the electoral victory of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the state, describing it as ‘wasted votes’.
Yakubu added that nine other cases were being reviewed after court judgements overturning the conduct of the affected different parties.
“I want to reiterate the importance of conducting proper primaries before elections in order to reduce the spate of litigation associated with them.
“At the moment, there are 809 pre-election cases pending in various courts across the country challenging the conduct of primaries by political parties for the 2019 general elections.
“This is clearly more than the total number of petitions currently before the various election petition tribunals nationwide challenging the outcome of the main elections.
“In our last update, the commission reported that 25 certificates of return had been withdrawn and issued to persons declared winners by courts of law. Since then, three more certificates have been withdrawn by court order.
“With the Zamfara case, the figure has now risen to 64. In addition, the Commission is studying nine more judgements we were served in the last one week in which primary elections conducted by different political parties were upturned by the courts,” Yakubu said.
Details later….
