Political parties, including the All Progressives Congress and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), are set to battle for 94 legislative seats in federal and state parliaments in Saturday’s supplementary elections.
Supplementary governorship elections will be held in Adamawa and Kebbi states on the same day.
In the general elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission declared winners for 26 governorship, 104 senatorial, 329 House of Reps members and 935 state assembly seats.
INEC had also declared several polls inconclusive, while the electoral umpire cancelled several others due to irregularities and violence.
The commission had scheduled the supplementary polls for April 15 where voters in five senatorial districts, 31 federal and 58 state assembly constituencies will determine the winners.
The senatorial elections will be held in Sokoto, Kebbi and Zamfara. In Sokoto, supplementary elections are to be conducted in Sokoto-North, Sokoto-East and Sokoto-South districts.
The elections will also be held in 389 polling units across all the 23 LGAs of the state. Altogether, about 227,743 eligible voters are expected to participate in the exercise.
In Kebbi and Zamfara, the election would be conducted in one senatorial district each – Kebbi-North and Zamfara-Central.
While the election will be held in 23 polling units in the Kebbi North senatorial district, voters in 83 PUs will be voting in the Zamfara Central senatorial election. They have 13,243 and 47,277 eligible voters, respectively.
Meanwhile, the supplementary election for House of Representatives members will be held in 31 constituencies in 15 states.
They are Akwa Ibom (2), Anambra (1), Bayelsa (1), Edo (1), Imo (1), Kano (2), Kebbi (2), Kogi (1), Oyo (2), Rivers (2), Sokoto (11), Taraba (1), Zamfara (2), Jigawa (1) and Ebonyi state (1).
For the state Houses of Assembly positions, elections will be held in 58 constituencies across 17 states.
The polls will also take place in Adamawa State where Governor Ahmadu Fintiri of the PDP will slug it out with the APC governorship candidate, Aisha Binani in the rerun.
The state collation officer, Prof Muhammadu Mele of the University of Maiduguri, had declared the election in the state inconclusive due to the margin of votes. Fintiri, who is seeking re-election polled 421,524, while Ahmed scored 390,275.
In Kebbi State, the APC, and PDP are also ready to battle it out as they prepare for the governorship rerun.
The electoral commission had declared the election inconclusive citing the cancellation of results in different polling units across the registration areas in 20 of the 21 local government areas of the state.
Speaking with The PUNCH, Deputy National Publicity Secretary of the PDP, Ibrahim Abdullahi disclosed that the party was ready to explore every legitimate option to coast home to victory even as he expressed optimism on the chances of the party on Saturday.
“We are exploring that option (alliance with other parties) because it is the right thing to do. The chances of the PDP are very bright in the governorship supplementary elections in both Adamawa and Kebbi states.
“These are two states where the PDP is the party to beat but we are not taking anything for granted. We worked very hard on the first ballot, and we are prepared to repeat the feat on Saturday,” he said.
Although the deputy publicity scribe did not disclose the identity of the parties in talks with the PDP, he noted that the main opposition party will give a good account of itself in the polls across the board.
“The PDP is the party for all Nigerians. We are everywhere and this Saturday, Nigerians will again demonstrate their support for the party. We will come out stronger. We would like to use this opportunity to call on the umpire and the security agencies to live above board. Neutrality, competence and professionalism should be their watchwords,” he added.
The New Nigeria People’s Party similarly has confirmed its readiness to align with other parties ahead of the election.
In a telephone conversation with our correspondent, Ladipo Johnson, spokesman of the party presidential campaign council in the recently held election said, “The NNPP will always do anything legally permissible to aid us in our bid to bring good governance to the people of Nigeria. Thus, we will welcome with open arms all those who want to work with us to serve the people.”
But the APC leadership insisted the APC remains the party to beat in the polls.
Speaking with our correspondent, the APC Director of Publicity, Bala Ibrahim, stated that the ruling party foresees no obstacle to its victory at the polls as long as the electoral umpire, security agents and other relevant stakeholders play their role without bias.
He said, “People have been sensitized to use their conscience to see to it that they elect people who will give them the representation they want. I don’t see APC victory being hijacked by an alliance of political parties provided everyone including the agency tasked with electoral assignment does what is expected of them according to the book.
“The APC is the party to beat. Any party seeking alliance now is doing so because it doesn’t see itself as doing it alone. Without sounding immodest, the party has demonstrated strength and fairness to the people. It has also shown that it is a party that respects the law. There is no need for us to shout ‘Come for alliance’ for us to win an election, we expect people to use their conscience.”
Ibrahim, however, stated that they are working hard to ensure they carry the day in the rerun.
(PUNCH)
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