Anxiety have started mounting as the Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC), on Monday issued a fresh warning to the political parties that the Friday deadline for the submission of the names of candidates and their running mates is set in stone.
www.bigpenngr.com reports that there is strong indications that the presidential candidates of the two leading political parties, Asiwaju Bola Ahmed Tinubu and Alhaji Atiku Abubakar of the ruling All Progressives Congress (APC) and the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) will unveil the names of their running mates for the forthcoming 2023 presidential election before the deadline.
Atiku is poised to pick his running mate from the South-south while Tinubu may likely pick his running mate from the northern part of the country.
According to Daily Sun, the National Commissioner and Chairman of Information and Voter Education Committee Festus Okoye who gave the fresh warning in a chat in Abuja on Monday, quipped that any political party that has conducted primaries is not obligated to submit the name of any candidate, adding that since it is their prerogative the Commission will not interfere with that.
“All the registered political parties are under a constitutional, legal and administrative obligation to submit the list of their presidential and Vice Presidential candidates and National Assembly candidates on or before the 17th day of June 2022. All the Political Parties are aware of this date and the date is cast in stone.
“The Commission trained four staff of the 18 registered political parties on the use of the Commissions Candidates Nomination Portal. We have set up our Candidates’ Nomination Centre and established a Help Line for the political parties.
“A political party that has conducted primaries is not obligated to submit the name of any candidate. It is their prerogative and the Commission will not interfere with that,” he noted.
Meanwhile, an All Progressives Congress (APC) group, under the auspices of North East APC Youth Stakeholders’ Forum, has pleaded with the leadership of the ruling party to consider an indigene of the zone for the position of the party’s running mate.
Addressing newsmen in Abuja on Monday, the leader of the group, Haruna Adamu Sardauna, said; “while appreciating our party loyal members, especially from the North-West and North Central zones, we are appealing for their special consideration of the North-East zone for the position of the running mate of APC in the 2023 general election.”
“The North-East region had consistently given block votes to the APC and supported candidates from the other region, right from its Inception. Looking at the current pathetic situation that the region is embedded with due to Insurgency and other social unrest menaces.
“Zoning the position of the running mate to the North East will neutralise the PDP presidential candidate and mobilizes massive support from the region and other Zones to ensure the victory of Ahmed Bola Tinubu.
“We, therefore, appealed to our national, state critical and non-critical stakeholders especially our father, President Muhammadu Buhari, our candidate, Ahmed Bola Tinubu and Senator Abdullahi Adamu-led APC National Working Committee (NWC),” they said.