THE Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) will today hold governorship elections in 26 of the 36 states of the federation.The first time INEC conducted governorship polls in a single state was in 2010 when Mr. Peter Obi of the All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA) won the Anambra State governorship race.In todays rescheduled governorship polls, the electoral umpire will only conduct the exercise in 26 of the 36 states.Of the 10 states where elections will not hold, five of them have their polls shifted to 2012 by the court, which ruled that their governors have one more year to stay in office.The affected governors are Murtala Nyako of Adamawa State, Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa), Liyel Imoke (Cross River), Kogis Ibrahim Idris and Magatakarda Wammako of Sokoto State. The Appeal Court in Abuja had upheld the verdict of a lower court, which ruled in favour of the five PDP governors that by virtue of their second oath in office after winning the re-run polls, they are to leave office in 2012 at different dates.Also, elections will not hold in Edo, Ekiti, Ondo and Osun states because their governors took their oath after the 2007 polls after they won protracted legal battles at the appellate court.And after the post-election violence in some northern states after the presidential polls of April 16, INEC postponed the governorship polls in Kaduna and Bauchi states to Thursday, April 28, 2011.Todays election will however hold in all the 36 states for the Houses of Assembly, where potential and old lawmakers are contesting the polls.In the states where the polls will hold today, the PDP has 26 incumbent governors but not all of them will feature in the election. Two PDP governorsBukola Saraki (Kwara) and Gbenga Daniel (Ogun) have completed their second term and will not seek re-election.The Action Congress of Nigeria (ACN) has four governors but only one, Lagos States Babatunde Fashola will participate in the exercise.In the three states controlled by the All Nigerian Peoples Party (ANPP)Borno, Kano and Yobeonly the Yobe State Governor Ibrahim Geidam will feature in the election.Kano State Governor and the ANPP presidential candidate, Ibrahim Shekarau, like his Borno State counterpart, Ali Modu Sheriff are completing their second term.The PDP incumbents seeking re-election are Danjuma Goje (Gombe), Danbaba Suntai (Taraba), Gabriel Suswam (Benue), Akwe Doma (Nasarawa), Babangida Aliyu (Niger), Jonah Jang (Plateau), Sule Lamido (Jigawa), Patrick Yakowa (Kaduna), who succeeded Vice President Namadi Sambo after he was appointed by President Goodluck Jonathan upon the death of his superior, Umaru Musa YarAdua; Ibrahim Shema (Katsina), Seidu Dakingari (Kebbi), Aliyu Shinkafi (Zamfara), Martin Elechi (Ebonyi), Sullivan Chime (Enugu), Ikedi Ohakim (Imo), Godswill Akpabio (Akwa Ibom), Emmanuel Uduaghan (Delta), Rotimi Amaechi (Rivers), Theodore Orji (Abia), and Adebayo Alao-Akala (Oyo).In Niger State, some opposition parties have threatened to boycott todays polls over the non-inclusion of their logos in the ballot papers.The parties are African Democratic Congress (ADC) and Citizens Popular Party (CPP).But despite the protest, the states Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr. Emmanuel Onucheyo, said INEC would go ahead with the polls, saying it would use the re-run ballot papers for the exercise.It was learnt that INEC discovered the errors last Sunday, when it was about to distribute sensitive materials to the 25 local councils and the affected parties immediately raised alarm but the REC said it was too late.The state Chairman of the Congress for Progressive Change (CPC), Malam Umaru Shuaibu, has also kicked against the use of the re-run ballot papers for the election. He said the re-run ballot papers were already in circulation.According to him, INEC has no excuse because before now, parties have identified these problems and notified INEC. We are not going to accept the use of the re-run ballot papers for Tuesdays election.The state ANPP Chairman, Aminat Mohammed, described as deliberate the action of INEC to omit the logos of the two parties, adding that the use of re-run ballot papers with logos of over 60 parties would be cumbersome for voters in the rural areas, who are mostly illiterates.The ACN has also kicked against conducting the election with the re-run ballot papers. Mr. Bello Aminu, the partys representative at a meeting held by the stakeholders, said: ACN says no to the use of ballot papers meant for re-run. This is the beginning of rigging and we are against it.But the REC said: When we discovered the omission we contacted the headquarters and we were advised that because of the time, we should use the ballot papers for the re-run for the governorship election on Tuesday. The commission intends to run the election with an all inclusive logo of all the political parties on Tuesday and that is final.
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