The News
It is common knowledge that both Senators Ahmed Lawan and Godwin Akpabio did not purchase the All Progressive Congress’ expression of interest forms for the Senate and were not screened for same and did not participate in the party primaries. Indeed, each of the duo purchased the nomination forms for the presidential primary for N100 million and were screened for the position by the APC. They proceeded to participate in the well televised presidential primary election of the APC held in Abuja and monitored by INEC. Meanwhile, in the senatorial primaries conducted by the APC and monitored by INEC, Rtd. DIG. Udom Ekpoudom and Bashir Machina emerged the candidates for Akwa Ibom West Senatorial District and Yobe North Senatorial District respectively. Even though both candidates have not withdrawn from the senatorial race the APC has submitted the names of Senators Godwin Akpabio and Ahmed Lawan for the two Districts in utter breach of the Electoral Act, 2022. Apart from the brazen impunity of the APC, Dr. Ahmed Lawan superintended the passage of the Electoral Act by the national assembly while Senator Godwin Akpabio is a senior lawyer who ought to have familiarised with the provisions of the Act.
In his characteristic audacious manner, the Akwa Ibom Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Mike Igini has questioned the nomination of Mr. Godwin Akpabio as a senatorial candidate. In the same vein, Mr. Igini has maintained that the APC primary for the election of the governorship candidate was not monitored by the INEC as it was cancelled for security reasons. As far as Mr. Igini is concerned, the candidates did not emerge from valid primaries. But while purporting to distance INEC from the position of Resident Electoral Commissioner, Mr. Mohammed Haruna, a National Commissioner of INEC, stated that “Igini’s remarks paint only a partial picture of the relevant regulations. He merely mentioned Section 31 that deals with the issue of withdrawal of candidate. For some inexplicable reason, he forgot to mention the section which mandates INEC to monitor only the primary of the State party executive recognised by the party’s National Headquarters. So if anyone was picking and choosing it was Igini & not INEC.”
In justifying the acceptance of the purported nominations of the APC candidates who did not take part in party primaries in Yobe and Akwa Ibom States, Mr. Haruna said that “INEC has no powers to reject names sent by political parties. Primaries are the sole prerogatives of parties. INEC’s responsibility is merely to monitor the primaries and make sure they abide by their own regulations, the Electoral Act & the Constitution.” While apparently inciting litigation without any legal basis whatsoever, Mr. Haruna claimed that “Our power in that regard rests on the fact that our reports are admissible as evidence whenever an aggrieved candidate petitions his party or the courts. It is therefore up to an aggrieved candidate to apply for the certified true copy (CTC) of our reports for presentation as evidence that his party did not abide by any or all of the three sets of regulations mentioned…
