APC, PDP, Others Race to Beat INEC Deadline
- Submission of presidential, N’Assembly candidates’ lists ends thursday
- INEC: Only 17 parties have submitted list
Onyebuchi Ezigbo and Adedayo Akinwale in Abuja and Omon-Julius Onabu in Asaba
Smarting from post-primaries crisis, many parties, particularly the big two, the All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), were wednesday still embroiled internal squabbles that had delayed the submission of the list of their candidates for the presidential and National Assembly elections holding the in the first quarter of next year.
As the deadline for the submission of the list of candidates for the federal election expires today, only 17 of the 91 political parties had filed their flag bearers applications, the Independent Electoral Commission (INEC) said wednesday.
Its National Chairman, Prof. Mahmood Yakubu, who gave an update on the process, said the parties still had up to 12 midnight today to file their applications.
Saying the commission was committed to enduring progressive improvement in the electoral process, he said the registered number of voters would by 2019 be a little above 80 million, adding that about 20 million PVCs were yet to be collected.
He said, however, that collection of PVCs will continue till one week to the general elections.
The INEC chairman said he hoped the electoral legal framework would be passed by the end of the week and that the bill would probably be transmitted for assent by the president.
But he promised that INEC was working in advance to put things in place based on the provision on the draft.
On funding, Yakubu said there was no discrepancy between the amount submitted by INEC and the submission from the executive to National Assembly, adding that N189. 2 billion was submitted but N189 billion approved.
Also speaking on the submission of list of candidates for the election, the INEC chairman expressed concern that majority of the political parties, including the leading parties were yet to submit a list to the commission as at Wednesday.
He explained that only eight political parties were able to submit its list of candidates for the 2019 elections as at Tuesday.
But by last night, 17 political parties yesterday had submitted the lists of their sponsored candidates for the Presidential and National Assembly to INEC ahead of the 2019 general elections, as submission ends today.
The electoral body had on several occasions insisted that there won’t be extension of dates for the submission of list of candidates by political parties.
“The last day for the submission of lists of their sponsored candidates (Form CFOO2) and personal particulars (Form CF001) remains 18th of October 2018 for Presidential and National Assembly, and 2nd of November for Governorship and State Houses of Assembly,” it said.
As at 8:45p.m yesterday, staff of INEC was still very busy attending to the political parties who were there to submit the lists of their candidates.
However, the major political parties like the ruling All Progressive Congress (APC), Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP) and African Democratic Congress (ADC) will all submit the list of their sponsored candidates today.
The political parties that submitted the lists of their candidates as at the time of filing this report include; All Progressive Grand Alliance (APGA), Accord Party, Campaign for Change (CC), Labour Party (LP), United Peoples Party (UPP), Liberation Movement (LM), Justice Must Prevail Party (JMPP), Kowa Party.
Others include; Fresh Democratic Party (FDP), Peoples Democratic Congress (PDC),UP, GNPP, ACD, SNC, MDP.
