Reacting to the supreme court ruling which sacked all candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general election, Festus Okoye, INEC di
Reacting to the supreme court ruling which sacked all candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC) in the general election, Festus Okoye, INEC director of voter education and publicity, of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), says it will announce its decision on Zamfara elective positions on Monday.
“Following the Supreme Court’s judgment delivered today, 24th May 2019 on the Governorship, National and State Assembly elections held in Zamfara State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) held an emergency meeting to consider the court’s decision,” Okoye said in a statement.
“The Supreme Court ruled that the All Progressives Congress (APC) did not hold valid party primaries as required by law. It held that all the votes scored by the APC in the said elections are wasted votes and declared that the candidates of political parties with the second highest valid votes and the requisite spread should be deciared as having been elected.
“The Commission will meet again tomorrow Saturday 25th May 2019 to further deliberate on the issues arising from the said judgment, while the final decision on the matter will be communicated to the public on Monday, 27th May 2019.”
Until yesterday, all the candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) who partook in the 2019 general election were considered losers but this changed after a landmark judgement that swept the All Progressives Congress (APC) off its feet. The supreme court ruling declared that the APC in Zamfara had no candidates in the 2019 elections, and therefore could not claim to have won.
The five-member panel of justices, presided by Ibrahim Muhammad, acting chief justice of Nigeria, unanimously held that the party with the second highest votes in the election should be declared the winner as long as it fulfilled the constitutional requirement. The judgement is in favour of the PDP which came second in the election.
What this means is that the outgoing governor, Abdulaziz Yari’s seat at the Senate will now be occupied by Lawani Anka Hassan, currently a member representing Anka/Mafara constituency at the lower chamber. He had in November, defected to the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) where he eventually got the party’s ticket to run for Zamfara west senatorial seat.
