Six parties set for Kano Assembly by-election

Six political parties are expected to participate in Saturday’s Kano State House of Assembly by-election in Dawakin Kudu Constituency, the Independent National Electoral Commission has announced.

The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kano State, Abdu Zango, disclosed this on Tuesday after an Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security meeting with heads of security agencies at the Kano State Police Command headquarters.

Zango said the commission would deploy 1,500 ad hoc personnel to the constituency’s 303 polling units.

According to him, non-sensitive materials had already been distributed, while sensitive materials would arrive on Wednesday ahead of the election.

He assured voters that the poll would be peaceful, free, fair and credible, adding that INEC had learnt from previous elections conducted in the constituency.

“Every election is a learning process. We did that before in Dawakin Kudu and it was free, fair, credible, peaceful. No issue whatsoever. We will do the same, even better,” Zango said.

The REC added that INEC and the security agencies had put measures in place to ensure a smooth conduct of the election.

The Commissioner of Police in Kano State, Ibrahim Adamu Bakori, said security personnel would begin deployment on Thursday.

“We are fully prepared and deployment will commence by Thursday. It is going to be peaceful, fair and free. We are ready to go. There is always improvement in every process, and definitely there is an improvement from what we have done before,” Bakori said.

The by-election was necessitated by the vacancy created after the former occupant of the seat moved to the House of Representatives.

INEC had earlier disclosed that 162,445 voters were registered in the constituency, while 148,971 had collected their Permanent Voter Cards, representing a 91.7 per cent collection rate.