The Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC has breached Section 75 sub-section (1) of the Electoral Act 2010 as amended by issuing Certificate of Return to declared winners of the March 19 re-run National/State Assembly.
Section 75(I) of the Electoral Act states, “A sealed certificate of return at an election in a prescribed form shall be issued within 7 days to every candidate who has won an election under this Act.
Resident Electoral Commissioner for Rivers State, Aniedi Ikoiwak has said winners of the National Assembly shall be issued their certificates at National Headquarters in Abuja.
But the REC, could not give any reason for the undue delay for the issuance of the certificate of return which has already breached the law.
Meanwhile, political pundits have said that Ikoiwak issued the certificates not only on the pressure on him but fear of being committed to prison for breaching the law.
It would be recalled that the winner of Degema Constituency Re-run election, Hon. Farah Dagogo had dragged INEC, Aniedi Ikoiwak to court, while the youth reps of the Peoples Democratic Party had last week led a peaceful protest to the INEC headquarters in Port Harcourt.
At the time of filing this report, INEC is yet to make public the result of some LGAs where elections were concluded as well as refuse to schedule date for elections in LGAs were elections were cancelled either for violence or fake results sheets.###
