The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, Mahmood Yakubu, on Friday explained that the tenure of the current local government and council chairmen will end in June 2026 and not 2025.
To this end, Yakubu explained that INEC will not conduct
local council elections in 2025.
Yakubu said the provisions of the Electoral Act 2022 (As
Amended) with respect to the tenure of Area Council Chairmen in the Federal
Capital Territory FCT, guarantee a four-year tenure for the Chairmen and
Councilors, not the three years provided in the Electoral Act 2010.
Speaking during a meeting with the Inter-Party Advisory
Council, IPAC, in Abuja, Yakubu noted that the tenure of the current chairmen
and councillors would lapse in June 2026.
Yakubu said their inquiries were based on the provisions of
the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended) which was the subsisting law at the time
elections to the Area Councils were held on Saturday 12th February 2022.
According to Yakubu, “Nigerians are aware that the National
Assembly has since repealed and re-enacted the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended)
as the Electoral Act 2022. In particular, in the exercise of its powers as the
law-making body for the FCT, the National Assembly extended the tenure of the
Area Councils from three to four years, thereby aligning it with executive and
legislative elections nationwide.
“This is one of the important provisions of the Electoral
Act 2022. The Act came into force on Friday 25th February 2022, two weeks after
the last Area Council elections in the FCT. By the time the elected Chairmen
and Councillors were sworn in four months later on 14th June 2022, they took
their oath of allegiance and oath of office on the basis of the new electoral
Act (i.e. the Electoral Act 2022) which provides for a four-year tenure.
Consequently, their tenure therefore expires in June 2026.
“For the avoidance of doubt, tenure is not defined by the
date of election but the date of the Oath of Office for executive elections or
the date of inauguration for legislative houses. For the executive, the tenure
belongs to the elected individual while for legislators, the tenure belongs to
the Legislature.
“A President/Vice President-elect, Governor/Deputy
Governor-elect, Senator-elect, Member-elect, Chairman-elect or Councillor-elect
cannot exercise the powers of office and draw from the remuneration attached to
it until such a person is sworn-in or the legislative house is inaugurated.”
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