BAYELSA: What We’ll Do About Supreme Court Verdict – INEC

The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has reacted to the Supreme Court verdict of Thursday which sacked David Lyon of the All Progressives Congress (APC) as the Bayelsa State governor-elect.

The Supreme Court had ordered INEC to withdraw Lyon’s certificate of return and issue a fresh certificate of return to the aspirant who came second in the November 19, 2019 governorship election in Bayelsa.

The earlier result declared by the electoral umpire showed that Lyon polled 352,552 votes in the election while the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) candidate, Douye Diri, came second with 143, 172 votes.

Reacting through its spokesperson, Festus Okoye, INEC said it would study the ruling and act appropriately.

“The Supreme Court has directed the commission to issue the Certificate of Return (CoR) to the political party that placed second in the Bayelsa governorship election and which also has the geographical spread in the election,” Okoye told Daily Trust.

“So, what the commission would do is to go back to its operations department and make a determination on which political party came second in the election and which political party got the geographical spread in the election,” he said.