It however promised to apply available legal provisions to the last Saturday’s governorship election in Kogi State.
Deputy Director of Publicity and Voters Education of the commission, Mr. Nick Dazang, stated this in an interview with journalists in Abuja on Monday.
He said in informing the commission of the death, the party must present a copy of the certificate of death of the deceased.
Dazang said, “The APC has to do proper notification and accompany it with the certificate of death issued by a medical doctor.”
Audu, who had polled a higher number of votes than the Peoples Democratic Party’s candidate and the incumbent governor of the state, Capt Idris Wada, in the election, which was declared inconclusive by INEC, died suddenly on Sunday in his home at Ogbonicha.
He was buried on Monday according to Islamic rites.
Dazang said INEC would apply the relevant laws and make a pronouncement on its position on the election immediately it received official notification of Audu’s death from the APC.
He explained that there were legal provisions to address such incident in the country’s electoral process.
The INEC director added, “When something like this happens, the party on which platform the candidate contested will need to notify the commission; of course, we have heard and read like everyone else but we need to be notified.
“Once the commission is notified, it will look at relevant clauses of the 1999 Constitution as amended, the Electoral Act 2010 as amended and also the Constitution of the APC itself.
“All these relevant laws will be looked at with a view to determining what to be done to ensure that whatever is done subsequently is done within the ambit of the law.
“INEC as a law-abiding body will do everything prescribed by the law.
“Thankfully, we have a consortium of Senior Advocates of Nigeria that provide counsel to the commission. We also have a very vibrant legal service department, headed by a SAN.”
Dazang stated that before the report of the death of Audu, INEC, on the directive of its chairman, had started making plans for a supplementary election in Kogi State.
He added that the commission would follow the constitution and not the opinion of people on the election, saying there were legal provisions for such incident.
He said because of the urgency of the issues involved in the supplementary election, INEC would prepare itself to commence consultation.
Dazang expressed the hope that the commission would come out with its position about the election before the end of the week, adding that the Electoral Act prescribed 14 days for the conduct of a supplementary poll.
He, however, said whatever the situation would be, Kogi election would not affect the Bayelsa State governorship poll as the commission had the capacity to handle the two elections.
“Assuming the two states’ elections coincide, the commission has the resources to conduct them. Don’t forget we have conducted national elections before and we are just talking about election in two states,” he stated.
On the efficiency of the card reader for the Kogi election, he said available statistics showed that less than one per cent of the deployed card readers failed.
According to Dazang, about 53, out of the 6,066 card readers deployed in the state, malfunctioned during the exercise.
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