Political parties on Thursday
resorted to last-minute rush to beat the Independent National Electoral
Commission’s (INEC) deadline for the submission of list of candidates for 2019 general
election.
INEC had scheduled the submission
of candidates’ names for the presidential and national assembly between October
10 and October 18, and deadline for the governorship and state assemblies
election on November 2.
As of 6pm when NAN correspondents
arrived at International Conference Center (ICC), Abuja, venue of the exercise,
many party leaders and representatives were just arriving at the place.
Some of the party leaders and
candidates who spoke with NAN, attributed the delay in submission to the
cumbersome process involved in the filling of the forms.
To fast track the submission
process, INEC grouped the political parties into seven teams, comprising 13
parties in each group.
Some of the parties’
representatives came into the venue with some of their forms to obtain tally,
while still sorting other forms elsewhere, to beat the deadline.
Some were seen using torch lights
at car park to sort their forms before submission.
While the deadline is fixed for
Thursday, only political parties who obtain INEC tally before 12 midnight would
be allowed to submit their forms.
Yunusa Tanko, presidential
candidate and national chairman of the National Conscience Party ( NCP),
commended INEC for the arrangement for collection.
Tanko, who was still waiting to
submit with tally number 37, said in the past, people needed to hang around
INEC office for submission.
He said with the large space now
provided, all they needed to do was to get a tally and sit in a hall till when
the tally number would be called.
He said the delay in submission
was not the fault of INEC or that of the political parties, as they needed to
get oath of office from the court for each form.
He said there was need to
increase the number of days for submission since the number of political
parties had increased to 91.
Olusegun Mimiko, presidential
candidate of the Zenith Labour Party, who was at the venue with Dan Nwanyanwu,
the party’s national chairman, said ZLP got tally 73 as of 5:30pm.
Mimiko said the party was still
within the time and urged INEC to be transparent in the 2019 general election.
He said credible elections were
the hallmark of democracy.
Mimiko said he left Labour Party
where he first obtained his presidential nomination form because of legal
battle in the party.
Alfa Mohammed, national publicity
secretary of the Social Democratic Party (SDP), said the party was still
waiting for submission with tally number 78.
Mohammed said the delay was also
due to the distance between the party’s headquarters and its state and local
government offices across the country, while some of the conflict from
primaries took time to be resolved.
The submission process was going
on smoothly as of 8pm with the premises still crowded with parties
representatives.
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