The national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party has sent a letter to the Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, Prof Mahmood Yakubu, in which it gives conditions for the holding of Saturday’s supplementary governorship election in Bauchi State.
The PDP letter dated March 21, 2019 was signed by its National Chairman, Prince Uche Secondus and the National Secretary, Senator Ibrahim Umaru Tsauri.
PDP said that the commission had yet to furnish it with the demands made by its Bauchi State chapter, and therefore it would not be proper for the commission to go ahead with the election without resolving those issues raised by its local chapter.
The issues are the release of the number and names of all the polling unlts where supplementary elections are to be conducted and their locations and the number of Permanent Voters’ Cards issued in each of the affected units.
The PDP also said that it would be wrong for the commission to go ahead with the election when the votes from Tafawa Balewa Local Government Area had yet to be collated and announced.
It said only its outcome would determine if there would be the need for any supplementary election in the state or not.
The letter read, “At this juncture, it is important to note that the re-run or supplementary election can only be ripe and determined upon conclusion of collation of all the results from the 20 Local Government Areas in the State and the margin between the winner and the runner-up is known. This is the position of the law as provided in the Regulations and Guidelines for the conduct of elections specifically paragraphs 33 ()& (e),4 (e).
“By the combined effect of Paragraphs 33 (a), (e) and 34 (e) of the Guidelines, the Commission shall wait to determine the margin of lead between the two (2) leading candidates for the Governorship Elections after collation of the overall results of the election before deciding to embark on supplementary elections,
“Therefore, in this present situation in Bauchi where one Local Government Area election result has not been collated i.e. Tafawa Balewa, the Commission cannot determine the lead between the candidates.
“Hence there is no basis for supplementary elections at the polling units cancelled pursuant to Sections 26 and 53 of the Electoral Act.
“We therefore demand for immediate suspension of the supplementary election scheduled for 23 March 2019 until collation of results from Tafawa Balewa has been conclusively carried out. “