The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) on Thursday maintained its earlier stance to disqualify the All Progressives Congress (APC) candidates in Rivers and Zamfara States from participating at the 2019 elections.
The electoral body in its final list of governorship and House of Assembly candidates omitted candidates of the party in both states
Recall that INEC had on Thursday, January 17, released a list signed by the commission’s secretary, Rose Orianran-Anthony and while candidates of the Peoples Democratic Party (PDP), Social Democratic Party (SDP), and Labour Party among others made the list, those of the All Progressives Congress (APC) were excluded.
A Federal High court in Port Harcourt, the state capital had nullified the direct and indirect primaries conducted by the two factions of the APC in Rivers.
The court presided over by Justice Kolawole Omotosho held that both primaries were not conducted according to the law.
Justice Omotosho had also restrained the electoral body from recognising Tonye Cole and Magnus Abe as governorship candidates of the APC in the general elections.
Senator Abe was declared the winner of a direct governorship primary conducted by a faction of the party in 2018 after polling 144, 929 votes.
But Cole emerged the winner of an indirect primary held by another faction with 3,329 votes.
Following the rulings, the Resident Electoral Commissioner in Rivers, Obo Effanga, insisted that the electoral umpire would always obey court injunctions.
In a similar vein, the electoral body also omitted names of candidates of the APC from its list in Zamfara State.
INEC which had earlier said it would release the final list of governorship and State Assembly candidates on Thursday, however, said the status quo remained unchanged.
The electoral umpire made the clarification in a statement issued on Wednesday night by its National Commissioners and Chairman of its Information and Voter Education Committee, Festus Okoye.
He said, “The Independent National Electoral Commission met on Wednesday, January 30 2019 and among other things approved the final list of candidates for the governorship, State Assembly and FCT Area Council elections scheduled to hold on March 2, 2019.
“On the whole, there are 1, 066 candidates for the governorship elections, 14, 583 for the State Assembly elections and 806 for the FCT Area Council elections broken down into 105 Chairmanship candidates and 701 councillorship candidates. “
