The Independent National Electoral Commission has confirmed that six political parties will participate in Saturday’s Kano State House of Assembly by-election in Dawakin Kudu Constituency.
The Resident Electoral Commissioner in Kano State, Abdu Zango, disclosed this on Tuesday after an Inter-Agency Consultative Committee on Election Security meeting with security agencies at the state police command headquarters.
Zango said INEC would deploy 1,500 ad hoc personnel to the constituency’s 303 polling units.
He added that non-sensitive election materials had been distributed, while sensitive materials were expected to arrive on Wednesday.
The REC assured residents that the election would be peaceful, free, fair and credible, recalling that a previous election conducted in the constituency was concluded without any major incident.
“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,” he said.
Zango added that INEC and the security agencies had agreed to work together to ensure a peaceful poll.
The Commissioner of Police in Kano, Ibrahim Adamu Bakori, also assured voters of adequate security, saying the deployment of personnel would commence 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 became necessary after the former occupant of the seat moved to the House of Representatives.
INEC had earlier announced that Dawakin Kudu Constituency has 162,445 registered voters, with 148,971 Permanent Voter Cards collected, representing a 91.7 per cent collection rate.
