The announcement of the timetable for the 2019 general election is coming exactly two years before the conduct of the elections.
In the timetable, the INEC indicated that it would hold the next presidential and National Assembly elections on February 16, 2019.
The commission also said that governorship and that of the state assembly polls will take place on March 2nd, 2019.
Speaking with newsmen on Thursday on the outcome of the commission’s management meeting, the INEC National Commissioner in charge of Voter Education and Publicity, Mr. Solomon Soyebi, said INEC released the timetable early in order to nurture the nation’s democracy and the electoral process.
He further added that the commission was desirous of standardizing the nation’s electoral process and ensuring certainty in the dates for elections so as to allow proper planning by INEC and other election stakeholders.
“Our democracy is maturing and the Commission believes that there should certainty with regards to timetable for elections. For instance, in the United States, general elections always hold on the second Tuesday of November in the election year. In Ghana, it’s the 7th of December of the election year while in other places like Mexico, Norway, Sweden, Costa Rica and Switzerland, the dates are also known in advance”, Soyebi said.
Soyebi added that INEC decided to fix the dates for the national elections in Nigeria for the third Saturday in February of the election year while the state elections would be held two Saturdays later.
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