The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says it
is making plans for the conduct of a run-off presidential election.
A run-off election is conducted when there is no clear
winner for the first election — this can happen when the candidate who has the
highest votes fails to meet the conditional requirements on vote spread across
states.
Speaking on Friday at a meeting with bureau chiefs/editors
of media organisations in Abuja, Festus Okoye, INEC commissioner for
information, said the plan is in line with the tradition of the commission for
all elections.
He said plans are in place to print double of the total number of ballot papers required for the election, considering that the commission has 21 days to conduct rerun or run-off elections — as the case may be.
You can read on the difference between a rerun and run-off
election here.
“Section 134(2) of the constitution of the Federal Republic
of Nigeria, which is the fundamental law of the land, makes it mandatory that
before anyone is deemed to have been elected as a president of the Federal
Republic of Nigeria, that candidate must secure the highest number of votes
cast at the election,” Okoye said.
“He must also secure a quarter of the votes cast in
two-thirds of all the states of the federation and the federal capital
territory. That is mandatory.
“Now, if no candidate
secures this highest number of votes and the mandatory threshold, the
constitution says we must have a second election within a period of 21 days.
“Now, not all candidates are going to participate in this
second election. Eighteen candidates will be on the ballot for the first
election.
“If no candidate emerges on the first ballot, only two
candidates are going to be on the second ballot or only two candidates are
going to contest the second election.
“The constitution has made it very clear that the two
candidates will be on the ballot are; the one that scored the highest number of
votes at the election. The second candidate that will be on the ballot will be
one among the remaining candidates who have the majority of votes in the
highest number of states.
“The constitution did
not say that the person who came second will be the person who will be on the
ballot. That’s not what constitution says.
“If 93 million ballot papers are required for the
presidential election, INEC will print 186 million ballot papers just to be
ready for a possible second presidential election.
“This is because the law gives the commission just 21 days
within which to engage in reverse logistics and conduct a run-off election in
case there’s no winner.”
Okoye also said all sensitive materials for the 2023 general
election would be kept with the Central Bank of Nigeria (CBN), except the
bimodal voter accreditation system (BVAS).
“We have classified
the BVAS as sensitive material and we have engaged with different security
agencies to provide security for the BVAS, because the BVAS will be in the
custody of the commission,” he said.
“So, we have adopted a hybrid approach as the BVAS will
remain with the commission, while the ballot papers will be in the custody of
the Central Bank of Nigeria.
“This was the
agreement we had with political parties, security agencies, civil society organisations,
and media.”
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