The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has
explained why some names submitted by the All Progressives Congress (APC) as
senatorial candidates are missing from the list published by the commission on
Friday.
Festus Okoye, INEC spokesperson, spoke on the development in
an interview with Channels Television.
Senate President Ahmad Lawan, Godswill Akpabio, former
minister of Niger Delta affairs; and Dave Umahi, Ebonyi governor, had been
listed by the APC as candidates for Yobe north, Akwa Ibom north-west, and
Ebonyi south senatorial districts, respectively.
However, in the list published by the commission on Friday, Lawan, Umahi and Akpabio were said to have been excluded.
The development comes amid controversy over the APC Yobe
north senatorial ticket, as well as issues over senatorial primaries featuring
Akpabio and Umahi.
Although APC had fixed its senatorial primaries for May,
Umahi, Lawan and Akpabio were said to have participated in primaries organised
by the APC after the trio contested the APC presidential ticket and lost
earlier in June.
Speaking on the development regarding the INEC list, Okoye
said the commission is not under obligation to publish the names of candidates
submitted by political parties if there are questions over the validity of
primaries featuring such candidates.
“If you look at
section 29(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, section 29 says ‘every political party
shall not later than 180 days before the date appointed for a general election
under this Act, submit to the commission in the prescribed forms, the list of
the candidates it proposes to support at the election, who must have emerged
from valid primaries conducted by the political parties’,” he said.
“The commission does not submit the list of candidates. It
is the political parties themselves that has been given the locus to submit
this particular list and in this case, there is no personal interference
between the commission and the political parties.
“We open the portal — what we called ‘candidate nomination
portal’ — and we give an access code to the national chairman of each of the
political parties that conducted primaries with which they upload the list and
personal particulars of their nominated candidates.
“So, if a political party has uploaded the list and personal
particulars of a candidate that did not emerge from valid party primary, INEC
is not under a constitutional and legal obligation to publish the particulars
of such a candidate.”
The INEC spokesperson added that a candidate who was validly
nominated at a primary, but whose name was excluded by the party, can seek
redress from a competent court.
He also said the list published on Friday is not the final document for the 2023 polls, adding that the final list will be published at a later date.
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