‘INEC can’t reject candidates’

(NIGERIA) The Independent National Electoral Commission on Tuesday said that it would not reject any candidate nominated for the 2015 elections.

The Chief Press Secretary to the Chairman of INEC, Mr. Kayode Idowu, who stated this in an interview with one of our correspondents in Abuja, said that the commission had no power to reject any candidate.

Idowu was fielding questions on petitions written to the Economic and Financial Crimes Commission against some candidates for the 2015 elections.

He was asked whether INEC would disqualify candidates on the basis of the petitions to the EFCC.

But Idowu said, “Based on Section 31(1) of the Electoral Act, INEC has no power to reject any candidate for any reason whatsoever. That is what the law says, and the law also provides that the political party will nominate candidates. If there are issues with the particulars of any candidate, INEC will refer back to the party. The party will have to do the needful.

“It is the same thing with the issue of the court case. For instance, if a party files a case against a candidate and the court says ‘you must not take that candidate,’ INEC will refer back to the party and inform its leaders to be guided by that order; so the party will have to do the needful because INEC has no power to reject candidates under the Electoral Law.”

A national newspaper had on Tuesday reported that the EFCC had received 250 petitions against candidates, who emerged at the governorship and National Assembly primaries of political parties.

Efforts to get the Head of Media and Publicity of the EFCC, Mr. Wilson Uwujaren, to comment on the commission’s position on the large number of petitions written to the commission against candidates were not successful.

The calls to his mobile telephone indicated that it was either switched off or in an area outside network coverage.

But it was learnt that the EFCC might not act on the petitions because its leadership was not convinced that the motive behind the petitions was to promote the fight against corruption.

-THE PUNCH-