INEC insists APC has no senatorial candidates for Yobe North, A’Ibom North-West

The All Progressives Congress (APC) has no senatorial candidate for Yobe North and Akwa Ibom North-West districts for the 2023 elections, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has said.

National Commissioner and Chairman, Information and Voter Education Committee of INEC, said this on Sunday in an interview on Channels Television.

In June, INEC had excluded the Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and a former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Godswill Akpabio, from the list of candidates contesting to represent the two areas.

The 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.

But Okoye said during the interview that 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 would 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.

“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.”