Ahead of the 2023 general elections, the Resident Electoral Commissioner (REC) in Akwa Ibom State, Mr. Mike Igini, has warned politicians in the habit of perpetrating electoral fraud in pre-election times, to carefully examine key provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act.
Speaking in an interview in Uyo, the Akwa Ibom State capital, Igini explained that “so many politicians are still relying on the repealed 2010 and 2012 Electoral Acts.”
According to Barr. Igini, “the purported emergence of former Minister of Niger Delta Affairs, Senator Godswill Akpabio as the All Progressives Congress (APC) senatorial candidate for Akwa Ibom North-West (Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District), is nothing but a Nollywood fantasy, because by virtue of the provisions of the 2022 Electoral Act, substitution of candidates by political parties is no longer permitted under the Electoral Act.
“By virtue of Section 31 of the 2022 Electoral Act, the only way somebody can be replaced in any form is that we no longer have substitution by political party. What you have now is withdrawal by individual or nominee and or death.
“The law is not saying you should go and kill people so that you can have yourself on the ballot. No! The law is saying that those who have emerged at all levels up to the presidential level, you can decide that you are no longer interested.
“You can write an application signed by yourself, delivered to your party who will now deliver to INEC but nobody can shave the political head of another person in his or her absence.
“The report of the Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District APC primary as submitted to INEC headquarters in Abuja is final. It is concluded. The train has left the station. The timeline is clear.
“All those who are in politics should go and study the 2022 Electoral Act very well. I hear people taking about substitution. If you look at Section 31 and Section 34 of the Electoral Act, those of you who are still carrying the old idea of the 2010, 2012 Electoral Act in your head, thinking you can substitute willfully, it is no longer so.”
Explaining further, Igini, who disclosed that he was retiring from public service this year, said: “Then, number two is only in the case of death. Even at that, there will now be a fresh primary. This is the new law. So, what we are seeing going on is clearly a misnormer.
“The rerun can only be conducted between and among those who participated in the first Senatorial election of May 27, 2022, and the Senatorial primary for Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District was not canceled, was not nullified, was not inconclusive. It was conclusive, it was concluded and the report was written and it is final because you cannot reopen that anymore.”
According to him, the purported new rerun Senatorial primary for Ikot Ekpene Senatorial District where Senator Akpabio emerged, “is strange and unknown to law as it was never monitored by INEC,” adding that “after the primary, the commission wrote its report to Abuja as was requested where it stated clearly that the APC in the state did not hold her gubernatorial primary.”
He recalled that “on the 27th of May, 2022, the APC Senatorial primary held in only two out of the three Senatorial districts of the state; Akwa Ibom North-West and Akwa Ibom North-East while nobody showed up at the venue for the Akwa Ibom South Senatorial primary.
“Out of the three Senatorial districts, we had election conducted in two, the North-West and North-East Senatorial districts where DIG Udom Ekpoudom emerged as the winner of the Akwa Ibom North-West Senatorial District which we wrote our report. Interestingly, the Head of INEC’s Legal Team in Akwa Ibom State was the one who led the team for that of Akwa Ibom North-West and they wrote the report and the report had been concluded on the 27th of May, 2022.”
The clarification, Igini said became necessary in view of mischief makers trying to bring INEC’s name into the controversy and calling him names so as to demonise him for doing his job in line with the rule of law.
“INEC does not conduct party primary, be it presidential, gubernatorial, Senatorial, House of Representatives, etc. All we do is just one per cent. That one per cent can be decisive in the sense that we cannot see something to be white in the morning and then in the afternoon it is black. Such a day will never happen in our lifetime in the service of our country,” Igini added.
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