The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has released the timetable for the 2019 general elections, with nearly two years to the conduct of the elections.
INEC’s National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Publicity, Prince Solomon Soyebi, who announced this yesterday at a press conference, said the presidential and National Assembly elections will hold on Saturday, February 16, 2019
while the governorship, State Assembly and Federal Capital Territory Area Council elections will hold on Saturday, March 2, 2019.
Soyebi added that the commission wants to standardise the nation’s electoral process and ensure certainty in the dates for elections so as to allow proper planning by INEC and other election stakeholders.
Drawing example from the United States of America (USA), Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica, Switzerland, and even neighbouring country, Ghana, where dates for elections are known in advance, Soyebi disclosed that INEC decided to fix the date for national elections in Nigeria for the third Saturday in February of the election year and state elections two weeks later. For the offshore or staggered state governorship elections, the National Commission said such election would hold Saturday closest to the 100 days to the end of tenure.
According to him, the Nigerian constitution provides for elections to hold not earlier than 150 days and not later than 30 days to the end of the tenure of the incumbent.
He said the dates proposed for the elections fall within 100 days to the end of tenure. On the 23 electoral officers indicted by the report of the Director of Public Prosecution (DPP) that investigated the December 10, 2016 parliamentary rerun elections in Rivers State, Soyebi disclosed that the commission decided to apply the provisions of the INEC terms and conditions of service.
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