By Ayodele Oni
While some Political Parties that had held national convention to pick Presidential candidates are still celebrating, the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has given them a marching order as regards deadline to submit names of their running mates.
INEC announced that registered political parties that are ready to participate in 2023 General Elections should submit the list of candidates for the offices of President, Vice President, Senate, and the House of Representatives by June 17.
INEC Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, disclosed this while providing updates on the Commission’s activities in Abuja.
This is coming as virtually all the affected political parties and their Presidential candidates are still consulting on the issue of running mates.
Aside this, some parties are yet to conclude their primaries to pick candidates for the Senate, House of Representatives and State Houses of Assembly.
INEC chairman declared that: “I wish to reassure Nigerians that the Commission remains committed to ensuring that all citizens who wish to register are given the opportunity to do so.
“This is one of the reasons why this meeting has been convened. Already, some of the Resident Electoral Commissioners have requested more voter registration machines to ease the congestion.
“The Commission will deploy additional machines to areas of need immediately. Thereafter, the Commission will meet to review the progress of the exercise and take further decisions.
“We will always respond positively to the needs of Nigerians and therefore appeal to all citizens to be patient with the Commission as we strive to serve them better.
“We appreciate the desire of Nigerians to register as voters. Let me reassure all eligible registrants that no one will be left out.
“Turning to the nomination of candidates by political parties for the 2023 General Election, all primaries end today Thursday 9th June 2022.
“For the next one week from 10th June 2022, all political parties are required to submit their list of candidates for national elections — Presidential/Vice Presidential, Senatorial, and the House of Representatives) latest by Friday 17th June 2022.”
Mr Yakubu added that political parties are also expected to submit the names of Governorship candidates and their running mates between July 1 and 15.
“For state elections (Governorship/Deputy Governorship and State Houses of Assembly), the list of candidates shall be uploaded from 1st to 15th July 2022 as already provided in the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election already released by the Commission.
“All Political Parties are required to upload the details of their candidates for each constituency to the INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP).
“To achieve this objective, four officials recommended by each of the 18 political parties were trained on the procedure for uploading the nomination forms to the dedicated web portal.
“Confidential Access Codes to the portal have already been given to each Political Party to facilitate the uploading of its nominations.
“For emphasis, the commission wishes to remind political parties that only the names of candidates that emerged from democratic primaries as provided by Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 shall be submitted to the Commission.
“Similarly, the list of all presidential and governorship candidates must be accompanied by the names of their running mates — presidential and deputy governorship candidates — without which the nomination is invalid. All nominations must be uploaded to the portal on or before the deadlines.”
