AHEAD of the governorship and state assembly elections coming up on March 9, the National Chairman of the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), Yakubu Mahmood, has tasked the various Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) to learn from the lapses noticed during the just concluded presidential and national assembly elections.

Mahmood gave this charge during a meeting with all the RECs of the 36 states of the federation and the Federal Capital Territory at the commission’s headquarters in Abuja on Thursday.

According to him, there will be governorship elections in 29 out of the 36 states of the federation while the rest are staggered and conducted off-season. But the state assembly elections will hold across all the states, while in the FCT, elections will be conducted for the six Area Councils.

Recall that the RECs had accompanied the collation officers across the states to present the result of the presidential elections in their various states during the national collation exercise that took place at the International Conference Centre in Abuja.

Mahmood explained that the meeting was for them to review the just concluded election with a view to correcting the lapses that were noticed, thereby enabling them to conduct smoother state elections.

He reiterated that the commission has gone very far with all the arrangements for the elections, adding that all that was required was for the RECs to learn from the mistakes of the past and ensure that the governorship and state assembly elections were well carried out.

The states where governorship elections will not hold include Anambra, Bayelsa, Edo, Ekiti, Kogi, Ondo and Osun.

The elections in the FCT will be for the chairmen of the six area councils as well as 52 counsellors for the various wards.