The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Friday, reacted to a suit seeking the disqualification of the presidential candidates of the All Progressives Congress (APC), Bola Tinubu and his Labour Party (LP) counterpart, Peter Obi from participating in the 2023 general election.
The Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had sued the INEC to court seeking an injunction stopping Tinubu and Obi from selecting Kashim Shettima and Datti Baba-Ahmed as their running mates.
It urged the court to disqualify Tinubu and Obi if they fail to run with their ‘placeholder’ vice presidential candidates, Kabiru Masari and Doyin Okupe.
Reacting to PDP’s suit on Arise TV on Friday, INEC’s Commissioner for Information and Education, Festus Okoye said although the Commission had not been served with the court processes, only the court would decide Tinubu and Obi’s disqualification from the 2023 presidential election.
“So, I am not aware of whether we’ve been served with any document relating to any suit of the complexion that you have talked about.
“But let me just say that if a matter is in court, the matter is sub-judice and we are not supposed to comment on it.
“Secondly, when political parties submitted the names of their presidential candidates and their vice-presidential candidates, there was no provision for a placeholder in the forms they submitted.
“They submitted the forms for their presidential candidates and they submitted the forms for the vice-presidential candidates and that is the situation.
“However, if you look at section 33 of the Electoral 22, it says that a political party shall not be allowed to substitute or change its candidate whose name has been submitted under section 29 of the Electoral Act, except in the case of death or withdrawal by the candidate.
“But it goes ahead to say that provided that in the case of such a withdrawal or death of the candidate, the political parties affected shall within the occurrence of the event hold a fresh primary election to produce and submit a fresh candidate to the commission for the election concerned,” he said.
