The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Thursday said the Anambra Central senatorial re-run election scheduled for January 13, 2018 will hold. The State Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC), Dr Nkwachukwu Orji, who gave the assurance in a telephone interview with Dailytrust said the legal debacle hindering the election from holding had been resolved.
Orji said the legal department had studied the judgements and asked them to go ahead with the election as ordered by the Court of Appeal as against the Justice John Tsoho-led Federal High Court judgement.
“Our legal department has asked us to go ahead and obey the Court of Appeal order against the Federal High Court judgement. So, we are going ahead to conduct the election on January 13.
“We are going on with the election as scheduled. We have started training ad hoc personnel ahead of the poll,” he added.
Recall that the Senatorial District has been without a Senator since 2015 after the Court of Appeal, Enugu Division sacked the occupant, Uche Ekwunife and ordered a rerun within 90 days. However, the issue has remained in court with the various court giving contradictory rulings.
While a Federal High Court sitting in Abuja had nullified the exclusion of PDP from the rerun and subsequently declared another PDP candidate, Obiora Okonkwo the authentic Senator elect, a Court of Appeal has insisted that the election be conducted without the participation of the PDP.
