INEC excludes Lawan, Akpabio from senatorial race for alleged malpractice
BY PAUL MICHAEL, ABUJA
Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has told politicians that are aggrieved over the conduct of primaries and subsequent exclusion from its final list of candidates to seek redress in court.
The ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) submitted names of Senate President Ahmad Lawan and former Minister of Niger Delta affairs, Godswill Akpabio, as its candidates for Yobe North and Akwa Ibom North-west Senatorial Districts, respectively.
However, in the list of candidates for the 2023 senatorial district elections published by INEC, Lawan and Akpabio were conspicuously excluded following the Commission’s resolve to work with the reports of its monitoring teams.
“In relation to the primaries for the Akwa Ibom North West and Yobe North Senatorial Districts, the Commission stands by the monitoring reports received from our state offices.
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“For this reason, the Commission did not publish the particulars of any candidate for the two constituencies at variance with the State reports,” Festus Okoye, INEC spokesperson, said in a statement on Saturday.
He added that aggrieved parties should take their cases to the Federal High Court “as provided in section 285 of the Constitution of the Federal Republic of Nigeria, 1999 (as amended) and sections 29 (5) and 84 (14) of the Electoral Act, 202.”
According to Okoye, INEC’s staff have been working hard to meet the deluge of requests received on the issuance of certified true copies (CTCs) of documents.
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