The Independent National Electoral Commission (INEC) has issued Friday June 17 deadline to the political parties to submit names of their presidential candidates and running mates to the commission.
Commission’s Chairman, Mahmood Yakubu, gave the order at a meeting with Resident Electoral Commissioners (RECs) in Abuja, yesterday.
“For state elections (governorship/deputy governorship and state Houses of Assembly), the list of candidates shall be uploaded from July 1 to 15, 2022 as already provided in the timetable and schedule of activities for the 2023 general election already released by the commission.”
He further announced that the commission has eliminated physical interface between party officials and INEC staff for the purpose of submitting the list of candidates for the 2023 general election.
Yakubu also revealed that a nomination centre has been set up at the commission’s headquarters to receive and process all nominations the political parties submitted online in a dedicated INEC Candidate Nomination Portal (ICNP).
“All political parties are required to upload the details of their candidates for each constituency to the INEC ICNP. To achieve this objective, four officials recommended by each of the 18 political parties were trained on the procedure for uploading the nomination forms to the dedicated web portal. Confidential Access Codes to the portal have already been given to each political party to facilitate the uploading of its nominations.
“For emphasis, the commission wishes to remind political parties that only the names of candidates that emerged from democratic primaries as provided by Section 84 of the Electoral Act 2022 shall be submitted to the commission. Similarly, the list of all presidential and governorship candidates must be accompanied by the names of their running mates (i.e. vice presidential and deputy governorship candidates) without which the nomination is invalid.
“All nominations must be uploaded to the portal on/or before the deadlines. The portal will automatically shut down at 6.00pm (1800hrs) on Friday, June 17, 2022 for national elections and 6pm (1800hrs) on Friday, July 15, 2022 for state elections” he said.
