The Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) Prof. Attahiru Jega will tomorrow meet with 37 Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs), who are in charge of the 36 states of the federation and Abuja to discuss, among other things, the forced registration of the Young Democratic Party which may force the commission to postpone elections rescheduled for March 28 and April 11.
The newly registered party had recently demanded its inclusion in the ballot papers following a court order that compelled the commission to register it and include it as a participant in the forthcoming elections.
The demand, sources told Vanguard, would inevitably lead to the postponement of the elections given the fact that the ballot papers had been printed prior to the registration of the party.
One of the options being canvassed to INEC is to appeal the judgment of the court to register the new party. The commission, Vanguard, learnt is expected to come up with a definite pronouncement on the way out of the emerging crisis.
Jega’s meeting with the RECs which was earlier scheduled for last week was postponed because the commission decided to wait till the conduct of the mock accreditation exercise which was meant to test the functionality of the card reader machines that is to be used to conduct the elections. The challenges encountered during the test run of the card readers will also be discussed at the meeting.
