The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) says
the All Progressives Congress (APC) has no senatorial candidate for Yobe north
and Akwa Ibom north-west districts for the 2023 elections.
Festus Okoye, INEC spokesperson, said this on Sunday in an
interview on Channels Television.
In June, INEC had excluded Ahmad Lawan, senate president,
and Godswill Akpabio, former minister of Niger Delta affairs, from the list of
candidates contesting to represent Yobe north and Akwa Ibom north-west
districts, respectively.
Meanwhile, APC had submitted the names of Lawan and Akpabio as senatorial candidates, despite the controversy that surrounded the primaries involving the duo in their respective districts.
An online report had recently claimed that INEC had “backdated”
the certified true copies of its report on the APC primaries to accommodate
some aspirants — a claim that was dismissed by the electoral commission.
Speaking on the development, Okoye said the commission
decided to exclude the names of Akpabio and Lawan from the candidates’ list,
because they were not nominated from validly-conducted primaries.
The INEC spokesperson added that any political party that
nominates candidates who were not elected at validly-conducted primaries will
not contest in the elections.
“The commission has
made it very clear that under section 29(1) of the electoral act, it is the
responsibility to forward to INEC the list and personal particulars of their
members who emerged from validly-conducted party primaries,” he said.
“In these two constituencies, two names were forwarded and
the commission made a determination that the names were not persons who emerged
from validly-conducted party primaries and we did not publish their names. That
is where we are.
“So, the commission will not go out of its way to plead with
a political party to forward the name of a candidate that emerged from a
validly-conducted primary.
“If a political party does not forward the name of the
candidate that emerged from a validly-conducted primary, the implication is
that the political party will not have the candidate in the election for that
particular constituency and that is just the law.
“Their (referring to
Lawan and Akpabio) names were uploaded by the APC to our candidates’ nomination
portal, but the commission made a determination that they were not the
candidates that emerged from valid party primaries.
“The commission did not publish their names and their
particulars in their constituencies. So, the implication is that as of today,
the APC does not have candidates in those two constituencies.”
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