Even though President Muhammadu Buhari has been announced winner of the election with a victory margin of 3.9 million, supplementary elections will still take place in some areas next week
The Independent National Electoral Commisslon (INEC) has announced that supplementary presidential election will be conducted in some areas during the March 9 Governorship and State House of Assembly elections.
The commission had been forced to cancel voting in certain areas of Rivers, Lagos and Anambra State due to violence when Nigerians trooped to the polls for the Presidential and National Assembly elections on Saturday, February 23, 2019.
Even though President Muhammadu Buhari of the All Progressives Congress (APC) has been declared the winner of that election, INEC said supplementary elections will still take place next week.
In a signed statement released by INEC’s chairman of information and voter education committee, Festus Okoye, on Friday, March 1, 2019, he said the decision was reached during the commission’s meeting with resident electoral commissioners in Abuja on Thursday February 28.
Okoye said the meeting acknowledged cancellations in certain areas due to violence which prevented the commission from deploying personnel and materials for the elections.
He noted that elections were also not held in certain locations due to disruptions and deliberate non-compliance with the use of the Smart Card Reader (SCR), contrary to the INEC Regulations and Guidelines for conduct of elections.
“Consequently, the meeting decided that supplementary elections will be conducted in all areas where elections did not take place and/or where returns could not be made on Saturday, 9th March 2019 alongside the Governorship and State Houses of Assembly elections,”the statement read.
In an election that had a total of 73 candidates, Buhari won 15,191,847 of the total votes cast while his closest opponent, Atiku Abubakar, gained 11,262,978 votes, an astonishing victory margin of 3,928,869 votes.
Atiku has refused to accept the result, alleging that the election was plagued by electoral malpractices that disenfranchised millions of people who voted for him or were willing to.
He assured his supporters that he’ll not allow Nigeria’s democracy to be debased unchallenged and vowed to challenge the result of the 2019 presidential election in court.
