The Senate on Tuesday approved the Independent National Electoral Commission, or INEC, to conduct by-elections for the vacant Anambra South and Edo Central Senatorial District seats.
The directive was made in the course of plenary by Senate President Godswill Akpabio, who also officially declared the seats vacant.
INEC had indicated in January 2025 that it was awaiting a formal request from the Senate before going ahead with by-elections, particularly in Anambra South, which had been vacant since 2024.
All Progressives Congress, APC, Senator Ifeanyi Ubah died on July 27, 2024, and created a vacancy in the Anambra South Senatorial District. The election of Senator Monday Okpebholo as Edo State governor in 2024 created a vacancy in the Edo Central senatorial district.
Ubah was 52 years old when he died from cardiac arrest in London two days after he left Nigeria for the United Kingdom on July 25.
Similarly, the election of Senator Monday Okpebholo, APC candidate in the September 22, 2024, Edo State governorship election, created a vacancy in the seat of Edo Central in the Red Chamber.
Okpebholo was reported to have garnered 291,667 votes to defeat his main opponent, Asue Ighodalo of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), who got 247,655 votes, INEC stated.
Ever since Senator Okpebholo was elected in December last year, the Senate, in a valedictory sitting, announced the seat of Edo Central vacant in 2024.
The INEC Resident Electoral Commissioner in Anambra State, Elizabeth Agu, recently reaffirming the commission’s commitment to conducting by-elections as mandated by the Senate. She stated this during a stakeholder meeting organized by the International Press Centre in the state capital, Awka.
