INEC declares readiness to reschedule Enugu South by-election

By Christiana Ekpa

The Independent National Electoral Commission, (INEC), said it is 100 per cent ready for the rescheduled Enugu South state constituency rerun election scheduled for Wednesday, February 14.
INEC’s Head of Voters Education and Publicity Department, Rex Achumie, told NAN in Enugu yesterday that adequate arrangements have been made for the exercise.
Achumie said that the commission would be receiving the sensitive materials from the CBN in the presence of the political parties and other electoral stakeholders by 3 pm on Tuesday.
He said that the sensitive materials would be kept at state INEC headquarters in Enugu for distribution before 8 am for the poll.
According to him, the issue of result sheets will be taken care of, and there will be no mistakes again.
The rerun could not occur on February 3 due to the lack of result sheets at the polling units, causing the exercise to be postponed.
Achumie said: “We will also have effective monitoring and supervision as the bulk of our top management staff will be in the field to ensure that everything goes well.
“We are calling on the electorate in the eight polling units in the Uwani axis of Enugu metropolis to come out en masse to cast their votes for their preferred candidates.”
Emeka Ngene of the Labour Party, LP, and his opponent, Sam Ngene of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, will slug it out for the 4,618 votes in Ward 5, where the rescheduled rerun election will take place.
Emeka, who polled 5,862 votes in the March 18, 2023, election, was declared the winner by INEC and was issued the Certificate of Return.
The ousted PDP candidate, popularly called anointed David, was the chairman of the Enugu State House of Assembly’s Committee on Health.
Although the Court of Appeal did not nullify the result of the election, it ordered a rerun in the ward due to some