The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) is to conduct the supplementary governorship election in Adamawa State on Thursday, March 28.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Kassim Gaidam, announced this on Tuesday afternoon during a chat with reporters at the INEC state office in Yola.
He informed the decision was taken after due consultation with the INEC headquarters in Abuja.
He said efforts were being made with the various security agencies to ensure the violence, which characterised supplementary election in some other states does not repeat itself in Adamawa.
He added that to facilitate a hitch-free process, only voters with PVCs will be allowed into voting centres in the places where the supplementary election will hold.
The supplementary governorship election in the state had been scheduled for 44 polling units in 14 local government areas but it could not hold on March 23, which it was originally scheduled following a court injunction against it.
The decision by INEC to hold the rerun on Thursday followed the vacation of the order against the election by the Adamawa State High Court at a sitting in Yola earlier in the day.
After the conduct of the governorship election on March 9, the candidate of the Movement for the Restoration and Defense of Democracy (MRDD), Rev Eric Theman, went to the court to allege omission of the MRDD logo from the ballot paper, and asked the court to annul the election and stop the rerun already announced for units where voting was cancelled.
The court immediately granted an injunction to stop the rerun and continued proceedings to rule on arguments raised at subsequent sittings, including the court’s jurisdiction over the case.
At the sitting on Tuesday morning, the Court ruled that it has jurisdiction, lifted its injunction against the supplementary election, and adjourned to Wednesday, March 27, to rule on the motion by the MRDD for the annulment of the March 9 election.
