…as APC, PDP, LP, 5 others win Senate, House seats
Exactly one week after Nigeria’s Presidential and National Assembly elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, has disclosed that the country’s 10th National Assembly, waiting to be inaugurated in June, would be the most diverse since its transition to democratic rule in 1999.
Chairman of INEC, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who disclosed this at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, in Abuja, on Saturday, said so far, seven political parties have won senatorial seats while in the House of Representatives, 325 out of 360 seats have been won by eight political parties.
Yakubu said winners were declared for 423 national legislative seats while supplementary elections will be held in 46 constituencies.
He also gave a breakdown of the winners, stating that for Senate APC won 57 seats, APGA 1 seat, LP 6 seats, NNPP 2 seats, PDP 29 seats; SDP 2 seat and YPP 1 seat, while for the House of Representatives, ADC won 2 seats, APC 162, APGA 4, LP 34, NNPP 18, PDP 102, SDP 2 and YPP 1, making a total of 325 seats.
Speaking on the purpose of the meeting which was attended by Resident Electoral Commissioners of the 36 states National Commissioners, the Secretary to the Commission, the Director General of the Electoral Institute, Directors and Senior Officials of the Commission, he said it was to review performance on the conduct of the 2023 Presidential and National Assembly elections and assess preparations for the Governorship and State Assembly elections holding next Saturday.
“No doubt, last week’s national elections raised a number of issues that require immediate, medium, and long-term solutions. The planning for the election was painstakingly done. However, its implementation came with challenges, some of them unforeseen.
“The issues of logistics, election technology, behaviour of some election personnel at different levels, attitude of some party agents and supporters added to the extremely challenging environment in which elections are usually held in Nigeria.
“A lot of lessons have been learnt. Of immediate concern to the Commission is how the identified challenges can be addressed as we approach the concluding phase of the General Election involving the largest number of constituencies i.e. 28 State Governorship elections and 993 State Houses of Assembly seats,” he said.
Yakubu also disclosed that Certificates of Return will be presented to Senators-elect on Tuesday 7th March 2023 while Members of the House of Representatives-elect will receive theirs the following day, Wednesday 8th March 2023.
On Governorship and State Assembly elections, the INEC chairman urged staff of the commission to work harder to overcome the challenges experienced in the last election.
“Nothing else will be acceptable to Nigerians. All staff found to be negligent, whether they are regular or ad hoc officials, including Collation and Returning Officers, must not be involved in forthcoming elections. RECs must also immediately initiate disciplinary action where prima facie evidence of wrongdoing has been established,” he said.
He said election day technology remains the Bimodal Voter Accreditation System, BVAS, which will once again be deployed for voter accreditation and result management.
According to him, the deployment of BVAS has gone a long way to sanitise voter accreditation as can be seen from the result of recent elections.
Yakubu added that “since last week, the Commission has intensified the review of the technology to ensure that glitches experienced, particularly with the upload of results are rectified. We are confident that going forward the system will run optimally.”