BY LEVI JOHNSON
The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has pledged to comply with the Supreme Court judgement that sacked the All Progressives Congress’ (APC) candidate as the winner of the November 16, 2019 governorship election in the state.
It, however, stated that INEC would only issue a certificate of return after determining the party that meets the Supreme Court ruling
Festus Okoye, the INEC’s National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee (IVEC), said that the commission would back to its Operation Department to determine the party that meet up the Apex Court ruling.
Okoye said: “The Supreme Court has directed the commission to issue the Certificate of Return (CoR) to the political party that placed second in the Bayelsa governorship election and which also has the geographical spread in the election.
“So, what the commission would do is to go back to its Operation Department and make a determination on which political party came second in the election and which political party got the geographical spread in the election.
“Based on that, we would carry out the judgement of the Supreme Court. We would do that when we get the judgement of the Supreme Court so that we would know clearly what the Supreme Court want us to do and we would carry it out,” Okoye told Daily Trust.
Earlier today, the apex court sacked the Bayelsa State governor-elect, David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress (APC) and his running-mate, Biobarakuma Degi-Eremienyo 24 hours to their inauguration on February 14.
A five-man panel of the apex court led by Justice Mary Peter-Odili ordered INEC to withdraw the Certificate of Return (CoR) issued to the APC candidate as the winners of the November 16, 2019 governorship election in the state.
Accordingly, the apex court in its unanimous judgement delivered by Justice Ejembi Eko also ordered INEC to issue fresh certificates to the candidates of the party with the next highest votes and with the required constitutional spread of votes in the results of the election.
Lyon was sacked for presenting a running mate with fake qualification.
