Latest News: INEC Complies with Supreme Court Order on Zamfara Polls

Update on the Press Briefing
1. First, let me welcome all of you to this Press Conference. The reason for addressing you today is to provide an update on the recent decision of the Supreme Court regarding the candidates fielded by the APC in Zamfara State for the 2019 elections

2. It is important to provide a background to the legal process that culminated in the Supreme Court decision on 24/5/19. You may all recall that the Commission issued the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2019 general elections on 9/1/18, over one year in advance.

2. Among other activities, the conduct of party primaries was scheduled to take place between 18thAugust and 7thOctober 2018.

3. Unfortunately, the APC did not conduct its primaries in Zamfara State within this stipulated time and the Commission duly informed the party that it would not be in a position to present candidates for elections in the State.

4. Subsequently, various interested parties, including the APC itself, approached the court over the decision of the Commission.

5. Just before the election, the subsisting court judgment at the time ordered the Commission to include the APC on the ballot for the Governorship, National Assembly and State Assembly elections, which the Commission complied with.

6. However, since the elections were completed, a Court of Appeal judgment and now a Supreme Court judgment have determined that the APC did not conduct valid primaries for the elections in question.

7. In its judgment delivered on 24/5/19, the Supreme Court, having determined that the APC did not conduct valid primaries, said that the votes cast for the party in all the elections in question were “wasted” and ordered the Commission to recognize the runners-up as the winners.

8. This judgment affects the positions of Governor and Deputy-Governor, three Senatorial, seven Federal and twenty-four State Assembly Constituencies.

9. Following the judgment of the Supreme Court, the Commission has met in two emergency sessions and taken briefings from our lawyers and staff on the implementation of the Supreme Court judgment.

10. While the legislative elections (Senatorial, House of Representatives & State House of Assembly elections) are straight forward to deal with because they entail first-past-the-post or simple majority of votes, the Governorship election is determined not just by majority votes

11. … but also spread in accordance with Section 179 (2) of the 1999 Constitution (as amended). This means that we had to first discount the votes cast for the APC at the elections and then carefully rework the spread by Local Government Areas based on the new valid votes.

12. In compliance with the Supreme Court judgment, the Commission has now determined the winners of the elections in Zamfara State as follows:

Governorship
1. GOVERNOR: BELLO MOHAMMED MATAWALLE, MALE, PDP
2. DEPUTY GOVERNOR:
MAHDI ALIYU GUSAU, MALE, PDP.

Senatorial
1. ZAMFARA NORTH
ALHAJI YA’U SAHABI
MALE, PDP2. ZAMFARA CENTRAL
MOHAMMED HASSAN
MALE, PDP

3. ZAMFARA WEST
LAWALI HASSAN ANKA
MALE
PDP

House of Representatives
1. KAURAN NAMODA/BIRNIN MAGAJI
UMAR SANI DAN-GALADIMA
MALE, PDP2. SHINKAFI/ZURMI
BELLO HASSAN SHINKAFI
MALE, PDP

3. GUSAU/TSAFE
KABIRU AMADU
MALE, PDP

4. BUNGUDU/MARU
SHEHU AHMED
MALE, PDP

5. ANKA/TALATA MAFARA
KABIRU YAHAYA
MALE, PDP

6. BAKURA/MARADUN
AHMED MUHAMMAD BAKURA
MALE, PDP7. GUMMI/BUKKUYUM
SULAIMAN ABUBAKAR GUMI
MALE, PDP

State House of Assembly
1. KAURA NAMODA NORTH
ZAHARADEEN M. SADA
MALE, PDP2. KAURA NAMODA SOUTH
ANAS SARKIN FADA
MALE, PDP

3. BIRNIN MAGAJI
NURA DAHIRU
MALE, PDP

4. ZURMI EAST
SALIHU USMAN ZURMI
MALE, PDP

5. ZURMI WEST
NASIRU MU’AZU
MALE, PDP

6. SHINKAFI
MUHAMMAD G. AHMAD
MALE, PDP7. TSAFE EAST
MUSA BAWA MUSA
MALE, PDP

8. TSAFE WEST
ALIYU NA-MAIGORA
MALE, PDP

9. GUSAU EAST
IBRAHIM NAIDA
MALE,PDP

10. GUSAU WEST
SHAFI’U DAMA
MALE, PDP

11. BUNGUDU EAST
KABIRU MAGAJI
MALE, PDP

12. BUNGUDU WEST
NASIRU BELLO LAWAL
MALE, PDP

13. MARU NORTH
YUSUF ALHASSAN MUHAMMAD
MALE, PDP14. MARU SOUTH
KABIRU HASHIMU
MALE, NRM

15. ANKA
YUSUF MUHAMMAD
MALE, PDP

16. TALATA MAFARA NORTH
SHAMSUDEEN HASSAN
MALE, PDP

17. TALATA MAFARA SOUTH
AMINU YUSUF JANGEBE
MALE, PDP

18. BAKURA
TUKUR JEKADA BIRNIN TUDU
MALE, PDP19. MARADUN I
FARUK MUSA DOSARA
MALE, PDP

20. MARADUN II
NASIRU ATIKU
MALE, PDP

21. GUMMI I
ABDULNASIR IBRAHIM
MALE, PDP

22. GUMMI II
MANSUR MOHAMMED
MALE, PDP

23. BUKKUYUM NORTH
IBRAHIM MOHAMMED NA’IDDA
MALE, PDP

24. BUKKUYUM SOUTH
SANI DAHIRU
MALE, PDP

INEC will issue Certificates of Return to the new winners as follows:

i. Governor & Deputy Governor-elect, Senators-elect & Members of the House of Representatives-elect will receive their certificates on Monday 27th May 2019 @ the Commission’s Electoral Institute at 2.00pm.

ii. Members of the State House of Assembly-elect will receive their certificates from the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) for Zamfara State at the INEC State Office in Gusau on Friday 31stMay 2019 at 10.00am.

I wish to seize this opportunity to draw the attention of all stakeholders, but particularly the political parties, to the implications of the Supreme Court judgment on the Zamfara matter.

It is clear that properly conducted party primaries are cardinal to the proper internal functioning of political parties, the electoral process and our democratic system at large.

Therefore, political parties must take very seriously the conduct of primaries according to all extant rules, including the monitoring of the processes by INEC to avoid a repeat of the Zamfara experience.

I want therefore to remind us that the Commission has since 9thApril 2019 issued the Timetable and Schedule of Activities for the 2019 Bayelsa and Kogi Governorship elections by which party primaries are scheduled to hold between the 2ndand 29thAugust 2019.

I appeal to political parties intending to field candidates in the elections to adhere strictly to this and other timelines in the Timetable and Schedule of activities.

I thank you very much and I will now take some questions.

Prof. Mahmood Yakubu