There is palpable tension in the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, over the continued push by the All Progressives Congress, APC, leadership to ensure participation of Senate President, Ahmad Lawan, and Godswill Akpabio, in the 2023 senatorial elections of Yobe North and Akwa Ibom North West senatorial districts, respectively.
Contrary to what the leadership of INEC had told Nigerians that the commission is legally bound to stand by the monitoring reports received from “our state offices”, verified pieces of information available to Vanguard suggest that INEC may have ignored these reports in some states of the federation, including Kano, Sokoto, Abia, Ogun, Oyo and Akwa lbom.
This has not gone down well with some Resident Electoral Commissioners, RECs, according to Vanguard sources.
In fact, the morale of INEC staff at some of the state offices has been dampened because some of the reports of the monitoring committees are either being tampered with or ignored.
As a result of this, INEC has instigated and encouraged many litigations in various federal high courts across the country.
At the last count, the commission acknowledged that there are over 300 cases filed in court that it is joined as a party. That is not all.
The Election and Political Parties’ Monitoring, EPM, and Legal Department of the Commission, under the direction and control of INEC leadership, have become theatres of intrigues, as politicians are preying on both departments to perfect their underhand ploys.
As it is for APC, so it is for PDP.
APC and intrigues at INEC Hq
Vanguard was reliably informed by highly strategic sources at INEC headquarters that the commission accepted from leadership of the APC, particulars of candidates that claimed to have conducted primaries that its state offices did not monitor.
For instance, in Kano, where the REC, Professor Risikuwa Shehu-Arabu, addressed the press recently that the only governorship primary the state office monitored produced Mohammed Abacha, son of late maximum dictator, General Sani Abacha, but was changed by PDP leadership and INEC’s EPM Department for one Ambassador Sadiq Wali.
In Yobe State, where Senate President Ahmad Lawan has tried unsuccessfully, so far, with APC leadership, to intimidate Bashir Sheriff Machina, winner of the senatorial election to step down, other forces have been mobilised, with a view to getting the name of the Senate President on the ballot.
Vanguard gathered that an attempt was made to persuade the immediate past REC in Yobe, Ahmed Makama, who had served as a special adviser to former President Olusegun Obasanjo, to endorse as received, a letter dated June 7, 2022, instead of its original which had a June 22, 2022, date, when the letter allegedly got to the Yobe office of INEC from the leadership of the APC.
This happened before the REC handed over on expiration of his tenure last month. REC Makama rebuffed all entreaties.
The letter would have suggested that the APC leadership had earlier given indication to INEC that a fresh senatorial primary was in the offing as early as June 7, 2022, wherein the Senate President may have participated in a primary monitored by INEC as stipulated by law.
But the letter itself would have created an impossible scenario as Senator Lawan was contesting for the presidential ticket at the party’s convention in Abuja at about June 7, 2022.
Under Section 84(1) of the Electoral Act 2022, monitoring of party primaries by INEC is mandatory. The Act used the word, shall, twice, to underscore the importance.
It states: “A political party seeking to nominate candidates for elections under this Act shall hold primaries for aspirants to all elective positions which shall be monitored by the commission.”
Section 29(1) of the 2022 Act provides that only “candidates that emerged from valid primary” can be submitted to INEC for publication.
Section 84(13) states that where a political party fails to comply with the provision of the Act, INEC shall reject the names submitted to it by political parties.
Just as it happened in Kano, the story is same in Abia, where, in the previously published particulars of NASS candidates, INEC that monitored Abia Central Senatorial District primary won by Sam Onuigbo, who defeated his closest rival, Chief Henry Okoh, by 157 to 152 votes, has surprisingly accepted from APC one Emeka Atuma, who Onuigbo alleged, did not buy nomination form for Senate and never participated in the process, to replace the winner.
Again in the just published particulars of candidates 48 hours ago, APC NWC first wrote a letter for the use of direct mode of primary that was monitored by INEC state office, but another parallel primary with indirect method was allegedly held at another venue not monitored by INEC, yet a former civil servant staff of INEC recently appointed as national commissioner instructed that the name of the individual from the so-called indirect primary conducted without ward, LGA and state delegates should be forwarded and the primary monitored by state office ignored.
Worse still is Akwa lbom State whereout of the 26 candidates that emerged from valid primary elections conducted and monitored by INEC state office, only two names were taken from the report of the state office.
No APC governorship candidate, in line with the state office report.
Instead, the APC leadership chose to pick just two names from the list of primaries monitored by INEC, and uploaded to INEC 24 names of candidates not monitored by INEC.
Curiously, INEC published names of candidates not monitored by its state office.
PDP and INEC’s indifference to court orders
In Delta State, where there was a valid Federal High Court judgment served on INEC, with specific, unequivocal orders of court that disqualified Mr. Sherrif Oborevwori and “commanded” both PDP(2nd defendant) and INEC (3rd defendant) separately, as parties, to replace the disqualified Oborevwori with the name of Mr. David Edevbie, both PDP and INEC are yet to comply with the orders of the court.
Instead, INEC wrote a letter merely to remind PDP of the judgment.
The letter completely betrayed INEC’s reluctance to enforce the order of the court, compared to the content of similar letters circulating in the social media in respect of court orders to PDP in the past.
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