Benin City, Edo state – An off-cycle poll will be held in Edo state on Saturday, September 21, 2024.
The votes come 10 months after the Bayelsa, Imo, and Kogi off-cycle elections won by the ruling parties.
The off-schedule election will be conducted by the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) in Edo, a state in the south-south geopolitical zone of the country.
In the present system, election is the means of choosing representatives in Nigeria.
Voting in the colossal African country started in 1959 with different political parties. It is a method of choosing leaders where the citizens have franchise rights.
Nigeria, which has 36 states plus the federal capital territory (FCT), operates a multi-party system. Presently there are about three strong parties: the All Progressives Congress (APC), the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), and the Labour Party (LP).
Chapter six of the 1999 constitution of Nigeria as amended sets the requirements to hold the office of governor.
Per the rules, a governor must:
Gubernatorial candidate’s eligibility
The governor is directly elected by the eligible voters through a registered political party to a four-year term and is one of only two elected state officers, the other being the deputy governor.
The governor of a Nigerian state is elected using a modified two-round system.
To be elected in the first round, a candidate must receive the plurality of the vote and over 25% of the vote in at least two-thirds of state local government areas (LGAs).
Citizens of Nigeria who are 18 years and above can vote within Nigerian territories.
TimesNow.com.ng reports that it is their (citizens’) civic responsibility to be involved in electing their country’s leaders.
Below is a simple procedure shared by INEC for intending voters to follow:
Although the above were shared during the general elections earlier in 2023, it is still useful and applicable to the coming off-cycle poll.
Earlier, TimesNow.com.ng reported that Prophet Joel Atuma of The Lord Grace Provinces, Umuahia, Abia state, said “the least expected candidate” in the 2024 Edo state governorship election would win the poll.
Speaking in a video posted on his official YouTube channel, Prophet Atuma projected that litigation will surface after the election, but the court will be unable to change the outcome of the poll. According to him, he saw “something like letter E” in the name of the next governor.
Source: TimesNow.com.ng
