A FRESH showdown looms in the polity as the national leadership of the Peoples Democratic Party, PDP, yesterday dared the Independent National Electoral Commission, INEC, saying it cannot stop it from conducting fresh primaries in some states. The party which has vowed to go ahead with the polls, said: “INEC has no powers to reject the list submitted to it by any political party. It has no such power. We will fix appropriate time to meet to resolve all logistics problems, but we are going ahead with the re_run election.”
The leadership of the party also picked holes with some of the activities of INEC, stressing that the Commission’s task of preparing timetable in the first place for political parties was an unwarranted incursion into the internal activities of PDP and others
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INEC, a creation of law
Answering questions from newsmen at PDP’s National Secretariat, the Party’s National Legal Adviser, Chief Olusola Oke said: “INEC is a creation of law, it cannot appropriate to itself power that is not given by law. PDP is also a creation of the constitution, we know our rights and limitations under the constitution. I believe that this will not really generate controversy. We are still doing our internal process. By the time we conclude it we will send our list to INEC and INEC is under obligation to accept it.
“I do not think that INEC can decree that we will not be able to conclude our primaries. We will do. I trust that when we have opportunity to meet with them we will explain our position to them, they will also explain their position and there will be understanding.
“The issue of INEC even preparing timetable in the first place to me is an unwarranted incursion into our internal activity. There are elections that are not concluded and the 60 days or 45 days prescribed by law after which we cannot submit names has not come in.
These are elections which were either not concluded or they were concluded on the field and we found that they were marred by gross irregularities and they had to be cancelled. They could not have produced candidates that will win election for us. So we are going ahead.
“INEC has drawn our attention to sections 133 and 153 of the Electoral Act. I have read it clearly, it does not give INEC powers to reject any candidate. I have also read the position of section 31 of the Electoral Act, it imposes an obligation on INEC to accept any list that we are giving to them provided it is done before 45 days to the election and we are still more than two months to the day of election. So I believe it is a misconception. We will sort it out at the appropriate time.
“My attention has been drawn to the INEC position on it and our position here is that we don’t want to join issues with INEC on the pages of newspapers or television. The Electoral Act is very clear on the power of INEC and on the rights of political parties. We believe that until the time limit by law comes in, that we are entitled to handle our primaries as to how our candidates will emerge.”
When asked to comment on the expulsion of Emmanuel Obot and his eligibility to contest PDP primaries, the National Legal Adviser said: “Somebody else emerged as the winner of that election. There are complaints that the election was not free and fair.
Final decision on expulsion
“When we take a final decision, we’ll ask for another re-run we will then examine this allegation about his expulsion whether he is competent to participate or not. Our attention has been drawn to it. People we expelled sometime ago for sundry reasons and we know that some of them were later granted pardon.
Some of them were re admitted. I do not know which category he belongs to, but the clarification I will make is that he never emerged as our candidate at the last primary. If we order a re-run, if he is going to participate or not, we will look at the issues.”
It would be recalled that the National Working Committee, NWC, of the party had, weekend, cancelled the governorship primaries held in Kogi and Kano States where it ordered fresh primaries in these states for yesterday, but INEC stopped the PDP saying the deadline for the conduct of primaries which was January 15 had lapsed.
Fresh Senatorial primaries were also fixed in some senatorial districts in Oyo, Kogi, Sokoto, Bauchi, Taraba and Adamawa
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