An Abuja based lawyer, Okele Ebimobowei has approached a federal high court in Abuja seeking for an order of injunction restraining the Independent National Electoral Commission[INEC] from conducting any election into the office of the governor of Bayelsa, Ekiti, Adamawa, Kogi, Sokoto and Cross River States in January 2010.

The plaintiff is seeking to stop the conduct of elections in these states until the incumbent governors complete their four year term which he says began to run from the day they took their oath of office after winning their re-run elections.

In an originating summons filed on behalf of the plaintiff, Mr. Arthur Seweniowor is praying for a declaration of the court that theIndependent National Electoral Commission cannot lawfully conduct election to the office of the governor of the six states where governorship re-run elections were held.
He is also seeking a declaration that section 180 (2) (c) of the constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria (first amendment) act 2010 cannot operate retrospectively.

The Independent National Electoral commission [INEC] had announced thet governorship elections will hold in all but four states across the country in January, ruling out elongated tenure for six governors who went through rerun elections in 2008 and 2009.

Based on this decision announced by INEC, tenures of governors whose initial elections in 2007 were later nullified by the courts will end on May 29, 2011, with the counting starting when they first assumed office in 2007 and not when they took second oaths of office after rerun elections.

The affected governors are Murtala Nyako (Adamawa), Aliyu Wamakko (Sokoto), Ibrahim Idris (Kogi), Timipre Sylva (Bayelsa), Liyel Imoke (Cross River) and Segun Oni (Ekiti).

The four states exempted from the governorship elections in January are Rivers, Edo, Ondo and Anambra, where the governors did not assume office on May 29, 2007 for different reasons, spokesman for INEC Emmanuel Umenger said in a statement in Abuja last night.

"Following the amendment of Section 180 of the 1999 Constitution, the Independent National Electoral Commission is to conduct governorship elections in Adamawa, Bayelsa, Cross River, Ekiti, Kogi and Sokoto states in January 2011, having regard to the fact that the incumbent governors won rerun/supplementary elections," Umenger said in the statement.

"The commission is also set to conduct governorship elections in Rivers, Edo and Ondo states in June 2011, July 2012 and November 2012 respectively, having regard to the dates the incumbent governors took their oaths of office.

"The commission is further to conduct governorship election in Anambra State in November 2014, having regards to the fact that the incumbent governor took his oath of office in March 2010."

The six governors first won elections in April 2007 and assumed office on May 29, the same year, but the Court of Appeal nullified their elections. They went through rerun elections and won, and then took fresh oaths of office, based on which they contend that their tenures were starting anew.

But the amended constitution, ratified by the state houses of assembly and National Assembly in July, said no governor should enjoy an elongation of tenure because of rerun election.

Section 180 (2) (c) of the amended constitution says: "in the determination of the four-year term (of a governor), where a rerun election has taken place and the person earlier sworn in wins the rerun election, the time spent in office before the date the election was annulled, shall be taken into account."