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Former governor of Sokoto State Alhaji Aliyu Magatarda Wammako, whose election was quashed by the Court of Appeal in Kaduna earlier this month, is free to contest the re-run governorship polls to be held in the state, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) declared yesterday. It also said the re-run governorship election ordered by the Appeal Court in Sokoto as well as in Bayelsa States will hold on May 24, this year. The commission said it is confident that the two elections could hold simultaneously without any problem as it is well prepared for them.
INEC said Wammako was cleared to contest the re-run election based on the ruling of the Appeal Court, which said that all candidates on Exhibit R8 as presented at the Governorship Election Tribunal are eligible to recontest. Speaking in his office in Abuja, INEC’s national commissioner in charge of Information and Publicity Barrister Philip Umeadi said the commission’s decision to clear Wammako was based on the Appeal Court order. He said, "INEC cleared Wammako because the Appeal Court ordered that all those who contested election in the April 14 governorship election and their names was presented at the Tribunal as Exhibit R8 can recontest, hence he is qualified to contest in the forth-coming bye-election in the state. Based on the list of candidates on Exhibit R8 presented at the Tribunal, the names of Alhaji Aliyu Wammako and his deputy, Alhaji Mukhtar Shagari were on the list and therefore they are qualified to contest the bye-election." The main opposition party in Sokoto State, the Democratic Peoples Party [DPP] led by former state governor Alhaji Attahiru Bafarawa, had earlier urged INEC to disqualify Wammako and his deputy, Shagari on the grounds that the Appeal Court nullified the election because it found that they were improperly fielded by the PDP to contest the election. Barrister Umeadi said yesterday, "We have fixed bye-elections for Bayelsa and Sokoto states on the 24th May. Both elections will be held on the same day and we have already drawn our staff from the neighbouring states of the two states where the bye-elections will be held." He said another reason why the commission scheduled the two bye-elections on the same day was because the two states have not up to 5,000 polling units, hence the commission has the potential to handle the two bye-elections simultaneously. INEC has also scheduled the conduct of the bye-elections for the State House of Assembly seats in Ebonyi, Taraba and Imo states in order to fill vacancies created by the nullification of elections by various tribunals. According to the commission, the bye-elections for the Onicha state assembly constituency in Ebonyi State as well as the bye-election for the Karim Lamido II in Taraba State would hold simultaneously on May 31, while the bye-election for Oru state constituency in Imo State would hold on June 7.
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