Bayelsa election will hold on saturday- INEC

    There is no going back in Saturday’s governorship election in Bayelsa State, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) said on Thursday. The commission said it would obey all legitimate court orders served on it in respect of the poll.

  The Federal High Court in Yenagoa on Thursday nullified the All Progressives Congress (APC) primaries that produced Chief David Lyon as the party’s candidate . The judgment was on a case filed by one of the APC governorship aspirants, Senator Heineken Lokpobiri.

   INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Mr Festus Okoye, told The Nation that the commission had deployed all it needed for the elections, adding that the polls would go on as planned. He said the election would go ahead with its plans for the election, using the materials already prepared before the judgment was given.  He said: “If there’s any court order concerning what we are doing, we will obey all court orders because that has been the tradition of the commission; to obey all legitimate court orders.”

   Justice Grace Inyang held that the primaries were conducted outside the guidelines of the party. Lokpobiri, in the suit, prayed that he won the primaries and should be declared the authentic candidate. Justice Inyang held that Lokpobiri and Lyon were not qualified to fly the flag of the party since the internal poll was not conducted in line with the party’s guidelines.

   The judge restrained INEC from including Lyon as the APC candidate in the poll. She said based on APC guidelines, the results of the primaries should have been declared by the returning officer for the pre-election, Governor Mai Mala Buni of Yobe State and not Senator Emmanuel Ochega, Secretary of the Election Committee.

   Justice Inyang ruled that the APC violated its own rules in the composition of the election panel when it constituted a one-member committee and not seven members as stipulated in the party rules. She said: “It has been established by judicial authorities and several judgments that political parties are bound by their own rules, the committee that conducted the primary threw caution to the winds and it is my ruling that the primaries stand nullified.

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