Party asks INEC to shelve Bayelsa guber polls

ALTHOUGH the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has concluded plans to conduct the re-scheduled governorship election on February 11 in Bayelsa State, the polls might not hold on that date.

This is because the Mega Progressive People Party (MPPP) has written a letter to INEC intimating the electoral body of the death of its governorship candidate in the election, Oduduogwu Ebakumotuebi.

Ebakumotuebi, 56, was certified dead by the authorities of the Federal Medical Centre (FMC) in Yenagoa on January 23 2012, at about 3.30 a.m.

In a death certificate that was issued on January 26 and signed by Dr. O. Okung, a senior medical officer at the FMC, the late governorship candidate was said to have died as a result of severe hypertension and heart failure.

The MPPP Chairman, Mr. Dickson Abo, in a letter dated January 26, to INEC, said the import of the letter was in compliance with Section 36 of Electoral Act 2012  (as amended).

Section 36 (1) of the Electoral Act states: “If after the time of delivery of the nomination paper and the commencement of polls, a nominated candidate dies, the Chief Electoral Commissioner shall, being satisfied with the fact of death, countermand the polls in which the deceased candidate was to participate and the commission shall appoint some other convenient date for the election within 14 days”.

With barely a fortnight to the governorship election in the state, the MPPP is yet to send the name of a replacement for its deceased candidate.

In the letter to INEC, Abo pleaded with the electoral body to afford the party the legally required timeframe to come up with a new candidate in line with the provision of the Electoral Act 2010 (as amended).

He assured that the MPPP would meet up with the requirement of law as the leadership of the party would meet to elect a new candidate.